SKF NOTE: Alphonse Mouzon was in McCoy Tyner‘s group when he gave this interview, comparing his experience playing with Tyner and Weather Report. Tyner’s group also included Calvin Hill (bass), Sonny Fortune (reeds, flute). Mouzon was with Weather Report for their 1971 debut album. That group included Joe Zawinul (electric/acoustic piano), Wayne Shorter (soprano sax), Miroslav Vitous (acoustic/electric bass), Airto Moreira, Barbara Burton, Don Alias (percussion).

Mouzon: “It’s totally different music from Weather Report – musically, personally, spiritually.

“[P]laying with Weather Report was sort of draining. I didn’t have any identity at all, because there I was doing things mostly from the mind, not of the heart…technical, kind of worked out, so I knew what I was going to do. That’s not too cool.

“[P]laying with Weather Report…was a Europeanish, rockfish, Milesish kind of thing.

“It was a good group, but it’s hard when you have three leaders telling you what to play. You can really go through a mental thing.

“I got the experience, the exposure, but it wasn’t me, because I still didn’t know who I was.”

Source: Alphonse Mouzon: “Play Yourself,” by Dan Morgenstern, Down Beat, March 15, 1973