PREPARE FOR A CHANGE IN THE WEATHER REPORT

Weather forecast: Early morning sunshine, becoming hazy for a while with possible change of temperature, clearing later.

That is about as firm a picture as one can draw for the present on the status of Weather Report. The jazz world’s most distinguished fusion band is at a crucial stage. Although co-founders Josef Zawinul and Wayne Shorter just completed a new album, it could turn out to be their last collaboration and the final use of the group’s famous name.

The problem is that the leaders have been going in separate directions. Zawinul’s solo album, his first in the 15 years since Weather Report sent out its original signals, has just been released. Shorter’s own LP, “Atlantis,” also his first in many years, was issued a few months ago, and he is committed to bookings with his own group for the rest of the year. As a result, Zawinul, who plans to go on tour to promote a new Weather Report album due out in May, will have to do it without his partner and, for legal reasons, without the use of the group’s name.

“I didn’t know until a couple of weeks ago,” Zawinul said the other day, “that Wayne is booked so far ahead. I can’t wait another year for him to decide it’s time for us to tour again. So we’ll definitely go out--but there will be no saxophonist, because nobody can replace Wayne. He came in like a blockbuster and played as great as I’ve ever heard him on this new album, but for the tour we’ll have a guitarist, John Scofield, along with Victor Bailey on bass, Mino Cinelu on percussion and Peter Erskine on drums; and we’ll have to change the name, maybe to Weather Update or something.”

How much the absence of Shorter will affect the impact of the band is debatable, for it is an open secret that Zawinul always has been the dominant figure, writing most of the music (for the new LP he composed six songs; Cinelu and Bailey contributed one each). Critics often have remarked that Shorter’s participation both as player and writer seemed to be diminishing.

Zawinul characterized the new album as “high caliber,” pointing out that because the members had been apart for a year, the spirit was that of a happy reunion. “Omar Hakim had to be brought in from London, where he was working with Sting; we had to fly in Victor Bailey and Mino Cinelu from Tokyo. Peter Erskine, who was our regular drummer in 1978, came out twice from New York to co-produce and do some of the playing.”

In addition to the five regular participants, Carlos Santana was added to play on two tracks. “I wrote a kind of Woodstock-era blues for him. The whole album is a swinging affair; we’re calling it ‘This Is This.’ So between my own album, ‘Dialects,’ and the new Weather Report album, it’ll be a one-two punch.”

The first punch is occupying Zawinul’s attention at present, and such is his eloquence in describing it that even if one has not heard it, his enthusiasm becomes contagious. (Having heard it, I can confirm that “Dialects” is an extraordinary accomplishment.) A polyethnic collection, it represents, he said, many of the peoples and places he has known, with impressions of their moods, their songs and dances, their laughter.

“Dialects” represents, for Zawinul, the collation of thousands of pieces of music he had taped over a period of several years. Using four keyboards and three drum machines, it is a one-man production and a step forward in the art of the synthesizer. Even some of the vocal effects are produced by Zawinul through the use of a Vocoder.

“All the pieces on the album,” Zawinul said, “were originally just things I sat down and improvised. Then I replayed them wrote them down note for note and recorded them again to achieve the best possible sound and mix.”

Geographically, the album’s seven tracks do some fancy continent hopping. Of the opening cut, “The Harvest,” the composer said, “This is a worldwide harvest celebration: to me a peasant in my native land, Austria, is the same as a peasant in China or Russia and so on.

“The piece called ‘Waiting in the Rain’ represents those poor people sitting there--in Ethiopia, any part of Africa, any place in the world--waiting for the dry spell to end. I was trying to capture the feeling of one group of people, a tribe, with a preacher. In every group there’s always someone who talks the most, and I assigned Bobby McFerrin to do the improvised chanting here.”

The scene moves to Japan in “The Great Empire,” with its gong-like synthesizer introduction, symbolizing the shogun days. “Then there are two explosions that to me were the two atomic bombs; and later on we hear how Japan has changed. There are two tones repeated, but they are never used twice in the same way; the rhythm changes every time.”

Zawinul’s music is evocative of many times and places in his life translated into the new-world languages of the synthesizers. The opening passage in the two part “6 a.m./Walking on the Nile” cut opens with a simulation of barking dogs. “In the village where I lived in Austria, early one morning my whole family was still sleeping and I hung a microphone by my window and picked up the sounds of the birds, the roosters, and then later, when I listened to the tape, I heard this distinct melody of two Dobermans across the street. I just put a bass line to it and that’s what you hear in the introduction. The second part of this tune expresses my feelings about the people of North Africa. I used a lot of acoustic instruments here--a kalimba, my dumbeck drums, and a zither my momma used to play when she was a kid.

“The last number, ‘Peace,’ was inspired by the great classical flutist Jim Galway; I wanted to get his sound--it’s a sort of concerto for flute and orchestra.”

Both the Zawinul LP and the new Weather Report set are on Columbia, the label for which the group has been recording since its birth. It is possible, however, that this may mark the end of the long association, since the album is the last under the group’s third five-year contract.

“We’re gonna go shopping,” Zawinul said. “I’m not saying we won’t continue with Columbia, but several other companies are very interested.”

Having devoted 15 years of his life to Weather Report, Zawinul says he has no intention of letting it fall apart. He and his family made many sacrifices, he claimed, and he had chances to do other things; it was because the group kept him so busy that he waited 15 years before making another solo album. And there is, he said, no animosity between him and Shorter.

“Wayne and I are friends; it’s just that he’s had a taste of being a leader on his own, and he wants to be out there doing his thing. That’s fine; but with or without Wayne, with or without Columbia, we’re gonna keep going.”