Peter Erskine: Revisiting Weather Report

A standout drum prodigy of his generation, Peter Erskine began playing at the age of four. After honing his skills at Interlochen, he launched his professional career in 1972 with Stan Kenton. Four years later, he joined Maynard Ferguson before making a pivotal move, replacing Alex Acuña in Weather Report. In the spring of 2025, acclaimed vocalist Kurt Elling embarks on a new project celebrating the music of Weather Report. As the tour nears its end, Erskine will join for a select few performances, including a stop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ahead of these shows, he spoke with All About Jazz from his home in Los Angeles.

All About Jazz: It seems like a rarified occasion to have you working with Kurt Elling on his Weather Report project and I know it's been a while since you've performed in Ann Arbor, one of the handful of dates you'll be doing with Kurt.

Peter Erskine: It's been a while since I've played in Ann Arbor. The first time I played there might have been 1971. I was playing in a small orchestra doing Handel's "Messiah" at Hill Auditorium. I first went to the Interlochen Arts Academy in the fall of 1968 and since then have always felt like an honorary Michigander. Whenever Weather Report would play in the Detroit area, it was always at a theater in Royal Oak. I got to visit that area a few years ago and it brought back a lot of memories, like Weather Report playing at Pine Knob.

AAJ: So how did this whole Weather Report tribute with Kurt come about?

PE: I've known Kurt for a long time. We've worked together on a few occasions, including recording with him on his album Flirting with Twilight (Blue Note, 2001). Since that time, I've done a few one-off projects here and there with Kurt. He contacted me about doing this new project and when someone asks me to do a Weather Report-themed project, whether it's a recording or concert, I tend to shy away from doing it. I have mixed feelings about revisiting some of that music. But it was a little easier for me to decide with Kurt because I place him in the genius category and I don't use that term lightly. He's a brilliant singer. He has incredible chops and pitch. He's also a great storyteller and a wonderful lyricist.

I didn't know what to expect. I was a bit nervous before we did the first show, but it was great. From the first rehearsal, it was easy to hear that his take on this material was very hip. Forty years after the fact, having played this music, it's an opportunity to revisit it with a fresh look. Of course, this is a different sort of setting because there's a singer. When I am working with a singer, I'm very aware of dynamics. You also have to be very aware of tempo because vocalists are dealing with that added dimension of words. They have to be able to sing them comfortably and effectively. So, I've always enjoyed that aspect of drumming. I'm probably more of a team player than anything else these days.

AAJ: Will Kurt be adding lyrics to some of these songs or will he be scatting?

PE: He is doing a combination of scat and lyrics and I can tell you he's written some incredible lyrics. What he's chosen to do is also inspired and not just the obvious choices. It's a brilliant choice of material. Kurt's scatting is great. Having said that, scatting can be cringy quite honestly, but not when Kurt does it. He's a real hipster and he wears that well in doing this music too. Everything he's bringing to this project makes it so much fun. I also think it's fun for people to hear me play this music again because I'm the last man standing from the quartet version of Weather Report. It's also different enough that it warrants being done. Some folks might want to hear us play things exactly like the original and that's fine, but I'm not interested in that.

We played three shows a few weeks ago. I met up with Kurt and the guys in Tucson and then we went to Southern California for a couple of different concerts. It was great. Every night just kept getting better and it was me feeling the music a bit more and understanding it. It was also about understanding where the guys were in terms of playing the music. I'm kind of a control freak and was trying to exert some ideas, but I was appreciating the pushback I was getting. In the end, we opted to meet well in the middle. Joey Calderazzo is a brilliant force of nature. Essiet Essiet has a beautiful beat and presence. Mike Moreno is a great improviser and he's the perfect foil and additional voice within all this material. He's one of those guys that can play with a pianist and make it work. That's not an easy task. If you have more than one chordal or harmonic instrument, they have to be dialed into each other.

AAJ: Now you came out of the big bands of Stan Kenton and Maynard Ferguson to step into a vastly different arena with Weather Report. How big of a change was that for you?

PE: Jaco Pastorius heard me with Maynard Ferguson's band and recognized something in my beat or just my makeup that made him confident he would be comfortable working together with me in Weather Report. Jaco kept pushing Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter to call and hire me. I'm absolutely certain that had those two heard me with Kenton or Maynard, they would not have been interested at all. I think they liked the fact that I played with Kenton because they were imagining the Kenton band of the '50s and they had both played with Maynard. That was an early gig for both of them so they respected that.

Joe called and was trying to get a feel for me. I felt it was a rather inconclusive phone call. I had been taking a nap. I was on the road with Maynard and I provided some phone numbers when management got in touch with me. I remember when I set the phone down, I didn't feel like I'd made any kind of impression one way or the other. The following day, I got another phone call from the Weather Report management office and this very pleasant guy named Paul Bruno. He told me Joe wanted him to ask me one more question. I agreed and he asked me if I could play the beat to the song "Nubian Sundance," which is on the Mysterious Traveler (Columbia, 1974) album. As a 23-year-old guy, without even taking a minute to think, I just replied, "You can tell Joe, I can play the shit out of it." He replied, "Okay that's great. Thanks." So that was how I got my foot in the door. Afterward, Jaco told me Joe liked my answer.

Soon we had the first rehearsal, which was also kind of an audition, and it went very well. Having been a big band drummer you are given an idea of what songs you will play and at what tempo. You count off the piece and then you're at the service of the performance. I got to the rehearsal studio in Hollywood after walking quite a distance and was very excited. It was mid-morning and rehearsal was going to start early in the afternoon. I was told several times the guys had called to say they were going to be late. Finally, they came walking in about seven o'clock and I was sort of bored at that point. I briefly met them and then instead of waiting to be asked to play, I jumped up and started playing. I threw down the gauntlet to Zawinul, who was just noodling at his keyboards. He was surprised, so he started playing. Then Wayne came in, followed by Jaco, who was carrying a six-pack of Heineken. He puts the beer in the fridge and steps on stage, almost like it was all planned. I remember he turns to his left and his bass comes flying through the air towards him and he catches it and puts the strap on.

We ended up doing this impromptu medley, which turned into a forty-minute jam. Finally, Joe gives the universal sign of raising his chin to signal the end. It seemed to already be sounding like a real band, with laughs and high-fives going all around. It made Jaco happy and seemed to validate his recommendation of me. We did some shows in Japan and Australia and at the end of the tour we did one more show in Honolulu. Right after that, Joe would tell me I was officially in the band thus starting what would be a pretty great odyssey for me. In many ways, it was an apprenticeship. In other ways, I was showing as much ownership as I could because that's part of the gig of being a drummer. Still, I had a lot to learn.

AAJ: At some point, you decided that it had been a good run, but it was time to move on. How did that all come about?

PE: There were plenty of times during the tours that it was tempting. Touring is pretty grueling and often I thought how nice it would be just to be at home. I just factored in that these guys knew more about this than I did and I still had a lot to learn. When Jaco decided to leave the band I had every thought and intention of not sticking around. I had cleared the summer of 1982 for a short European tour with Steps Ahead. I made the commitment and that band was starting to get booked. While I was in Japan with Steps Ahead I got a call from Weather Report's management telling me that Joe and Wayne had changed their minds and needed a tour to bring in some cash. They also had a new album coming out and the label wanted a tour to support the release. At this point, there had been no discussion about a bassist to replace Jaco. I explained that I had committed to Steps Ahead and with Joe's blessing had already left Los Angeles for New York to be closer to the jazz scene.

Ultimately, Weather Report management gave me an ultimatum. Subsequently, I decided I had to honor my commitment to Steps Ahead and so I decided to leave Weather Report. I felt incredibly relieved in my Japanese hotel room at whatever time of night it was, but I also felt a little dizzy. I decided to go for a walk and as I headed towards the elevator I ran into Michael Brecker. I asked him, "Michael, guess what just happened?" I told him I officially quit Weather Report so I could do the tour with him and Steps Ahead. I thought he'd be thrilled. He just looked at me and said, "Are you nuts?" I just replied, "I guess so."

I did get called back to work on the final album, This is This! (Columbia, 1986). Wayne was not there for most of that and so things were just kind of falling apart. I just really wanted to see if what I had learned from being in New York would make me a better member of that band or somebody who was more sure-footed.

AAJ: Around the time of that final Weather Report album, you started to show up on several ECM albums with John Abercrombie and then eventually a few of your own dates with the label. Tell us about those experiences.

PE: The stuff I did with Weather Report and even some of the Jaco stuff was often just a matter of doing the best I could and not always under easy circumstances. But by the time the ECM stuff came around, I felt I knew what I wanted to do and I was atoning for a lot of past sins musically. I just discovered there was such a wider palette available because of the dynamic framework being much more open. My playing since that time has codified this quiet thing where the use of negative space, rhythmic tension, and so forth makes the music a lot more interesting for me.

I like to think about going back to my earlier gigs with the knowledge that I now have and doing it differently. My fantasy really was to join Weather Report playing a little four-piece kit similar to what Eric Kamau Gravatt had. I loved that band and then I heard Heavy Weather (Columbia, 1978) with the wonderful Alex Acuna playing drums. I decided that was the version of the band I had been waiting for, never imagining that I would eventually be playing that stuff. By the time I joined, it was a very loud band so I brought in a large kit. I eventually brought a smaller jazz kit into the picture and that resulted in an interesting fusion of traditional jazz sensibilities meeting this powerful electronic force field.

AAJ: It's interesting because if you go back and watch videos of you playing with Weather Report and Steps Ahead you see these large kits with power toms and cymbals racked up high and at extreme angles. It's quite a contrast from your current set up.

PE: I was fighting the instrument. When your sticks are waving around in front of your face, that's a lot of noise aside from the noise you're making. Visually you have all the stuff waving in front of your eyes. There's a reason the old timers had everything set lower. Of course, you get older and things get lower naturally. But with the angles being more horizontal, it's easier to reach for things and there's a better sense of clarity and space.

We do the best we can do. Ultimately, that was what Weather Report was all about. Joe had a vision and he lived this music when we were on tour. If one of us, particularly me, was approaching the music wrong, he couldn't sleep at night. Joe was genuinely obsessed with the vision of Weather Report and that was part of the magic and the mystery. As for Wayne, he was the perfect yin to his Joe's yang. I went to see Wayne at Disney Hall before a concert he was playing with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. My wife and I went into the dressing room and chatted for a bit. We wished him well and just before we reached the door, Wayne leaned over and yelled, "Hey, Pete! BIG BANDS!" So, that seemed to confirm my theory was right. They dug the big band part of me. As unlikely as that was, it fulfilled some sort of function.

When they moved on they got Omar Hakim, who was a much funkier drummer, and Joe was always looking for the funk. It was never an easy gig being a drummer for any band of Joe's bands. I think the only drummer who received his blessings one hundred percent might have been Louis Hayes in Cannonball Adderley's band. When Joe was with that band he was working with Louis Hayes and Sam Jones. Whenever Weather Report was going to New York or New Jersey and we had a night off, Joe would take a taxi from Manhattan to North Jersey to visit Sam Jones and pay his respects. There was a whole other side of Joe in how much he loved remaining connected to the musicians he worked with and those who were his heroes.

When we did the tour for the Night Passage (Columbia, 1980) album, we were traveling with this three-screen slide show with six projectors. All these pictures of 52nd Street, Duke Ellington, and other jazz heroes were projected behind us as we played. In a sense, Kurt paying tribute to Joe and Wayne is the next logical step and that's why this project was so appealing to me. I knew we weren't going to just imitate what Weather Report had done. It's not the kind of thing that we will be taking on the road that much, so the Ann Arbor concert is going to be a rare treat. The band is really great and it's going to be a whole lot of fun.

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