FAREWELL JOE ZAWINUL

From Wikipedia:

Classically trained at the Vienna Conservatoire, Zawinul played in various broadcasting and studio bands before emigrating to the U.S. in 1959, where he played with Maynard Ferguson and Dinah Washington before joining the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in 1961.

During his nine-year stint on keyboards with Adderley, Zawinul wrote the hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." He also composed "Walk Tall" and "Country Preacher," the latter a tribute to U.S. Civil Rights Movement leader Rev. Jesse Jackson. In this title cut to the quintet's popular 1969 album release, Austrian-born Zawinul demonstrated a sophisticated and intimate understanding of the African/African-American concept of cool, of motion and interval. When "Country Preacher" debuted at a live recording session in Chicago at Jackson's Operation Breadbasket, it elicited enthusiastic cheers of immediate recognition from the mostly African-American audience.

In the late 1960s, Zawinul recorded with Miles Davis's studio band and helped create the sound of the new Jazz fusion. Among others he played on the album In a Silent Way, the title track of which he composed, and the landmark album Bitches Brew, for which he contributed the twenty-minute track, "Pharaoh's Dance", which occupied the whole of side one. Zawinul is known to have played live with Davis only once, on July 10, 1991, shortly before Davis' death.

Zawinul's biggest commercial success came from his composition "Birdland", a 6-minute opus featured on Weather Report's 1977 album Heavy Weather. "Birdland" is one of the most recognizable jazz pieces of the 1970s, covered by many prominent artists from The Manhattan Transfer to Maynard Ferguson. Even Weather Report's version received significant mainstream radio airplay — unusual for them — and served to convert many new fans to music which they may never have heard otherwise.

Zawinul was hospitalized in his native Vienna on August 7, 2007, only one week after concluding a six-week tour in Hungary. He died of cancer on September 11, 2007, aged 75.

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Zawinul first came to my attention my junior year in high school, back in 1984, when I bought Weather Report's album Heavy Weather. That was the first time I heard "Birdland" and it blew me away. Over the years I continued to encounter him and his influence. He was on Miles Davis' In a Silent Way album with Herbie Hancock and other greats. Brian Eno named a song "Zawinul Lava." He wrote one of the grooviest jazz tunes of the 60s for Cannonball Adderly, "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." And of course, I ended up buying lots of other Weather Report records.

He really was one of the greats, and more specifically to me, one of my greats, with me throughout all my years as a jazz fan. It's weird. Because Zawinul came on the US jazz scene decades after other legends like Ellington, Armstrong, Parker, and others, I always thought of him as one of the young guys. But he was 75.

I guess that means I'm no longer one of the young guys.

Here's a live performance of "Birdland" with Jaco Pastorius on bass.



Farewell Joe Zawinul.

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