Joe Zawinul: Solo Keyboard (1985)

From the Munich Piano Summer in 1985 Joe Zawinul - Solo Keyboard and Synthesizer Performance 0:12 Improvisation I 14:55 Improvisation II 29:18 Improvisation III 43:00 Improvisation IV Zawinul’s live set-up in this concert: - on his right from the top: Oberheim Xpander, Rhodes Chroma Expander, analog ARP sequencer - in the centre from the top: Chroma Polaris, Prophet T-8, on the left two small Korg rhythm machines (DDM 110, 220) - on his left from the top: Korg DW 6000, Prophet 5, Oberheim DMX drum machine, Linn LM-1 drum machine, Korg Vocoder At the back stage there is also a Korg DSS - 1 midi connected with Korg DW and Polaris Joe Zawinul (July 7, 1932 – September 11, 2007) was an Austrian jazz keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with elements of rock and world music. Later, Zawinul co-founded the groups Weather Report and the world fusion music-oriented Zawinul Syndicate. Additionally, he made pioneering use of electric piano and synthesizers. Zawinul was named “Best Electric Keyboardist“ 28 times by the readers of Down Beat magazine. A number of prominent musical artists have honored Zawinul with compositions, including Brian Eno’s instrumental “Zawinul/Lava“, John McLaughlin’s instrumental “Jozy“ [...]. Zawinul’s playing style was often dominated by quirky melodic improvisations – traversing bebop, ethnic and pop styles – combined with sparse but rhythmic playing of big-band sounding chords or bass lines. In Weather Report, he often employed a vocoder as well as pre-recorded sounds played (i.e. filtered and transposed) through a synthesizer, a method or technique called sampling, creating a very distinctive synthesis of jazz harmonies and “noise“ [...] Classically trained at the Konservatorium Wien, Zawinul played in various broadcasting and studio bands before emigrating to the U.S. in 1959 on a music scholarship at Berklee School of Music in Boston. [...] In 1961, Zawinul joined the Quintet led by saxophonist Cannonball Adderley. [...] In the late 1960s, Zawinul recorded with Miles Davis’s studio band and helped create the sound of jazz fusion. He played on the album In a Silent Way, the title track, 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, along with other Davis sidemen Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock, was one of the first to use electric pianos and early synthesizers like the ARP 2600 in 1973’s Sweetnighter. He was also among the first to use an electric piano, the Wurlitzer. He used the Fender-Rhodes thereafter, adding a wah-wah pedal and later the Mutron effect unit for a complex phased timbre. [...] In 1970, Zawinul co-founded Weather Report with saxophonist and Davis alumnus Wayne Shorter (and later joined by Jaco Pastorius). [...] With their 4th album, Mysterious Traveller, the musical forms were now through-composed similar to classical music, and the combination of jazz harmonies with 1970s groove elements helped launch the band into its most commercially successful period. The band’s biggest commercial success came from his composition “Birdland“, a 6-minute opus featured on Weather Report’s 1977 album Heavy Weather, which peaked at number 30 on the Billboard pop albums chart. “Birdland“ is one of the most recognizable jazz pieces of the 1970s, covered by many prominent artists from The Manhattan Transfer and Quincy Jones to Maynard Ferguson, the Buddy Rich Big Band, and Jefferson Starship. [...] The song won him three Grammys. Weather Report was active until the mid-1980s, with Zawinul and Shorter remaining the sole constant members through multiple personnel shifts. The group was notable for helping bring to prominence not only pioneering fretless electric bassist Jaco Pastorius, but also other musicians, such as Alphonso Johnson and Peter Erskine. Shorter and Zawinul had already gone separate ways, after the recording of their “final“ Sportin’ Life, when it was discovered that they had to do one more album in order to fulfill their contract with CBS records. This Is This! therefore became the band’s final album. Shorter participated despite being busy leading his own group, and Peter Erskine was also brought in again for this record, and played on most of the compositions. Victor Bailey played electric bass and guitarist Carlos Santana appeared as a guest artist on the album. [...] Zawinul became ill and was hospitalized in his native Vienna in August 2007, after concluding a five-week European tour. He died a little over a month later from a rare form of skin cancer (Merkel cell carcinoma) one month later.