Night Passage by Weather Report

Night Passage is the eleventh album by Weather Report, released in 1980. The tracks were recorded in August 1980 at The Complex studios in Los Angeles (before a crowd of 250 people who can be heard on a couple of tracks), except for "Madagascar", recorded live in Osaka, in June of the same year. The album introduces a new member to the band, percussionist Robert Thomas Jr. Night Passage loses the over-done production layers of some of Weather Report's earlier releases (most notably 1978's Mr. Gone). What is lost in layers of overdubs is made up in solo improvisation in the classic jazz tradition.