[FA Worldmusic] Joe Zawinul Tribute

Thu Sep 13 19:59:45 ADT 2007

When news of Zawinul's passing hit, I sent this tribute to my radio email
list. I think it's worth sharing.

peace,

Dore Stein
tangents.com

It is with stunned sadness that I pass the news that Joe Zawinul died
this morning of a rare form of skin cancer.

There will be a Tangents tribute on Sept 22 from 9p-midnight (91.7, kalw.org
).

In the pantheon of 'Tangential' artists, Joe shares the top spot with a
select few. He was an innovator, compositional genius and
cross-pollinating pioneer.

He led the most important world jazz fusion group of all time: Weather
Report. Of all the jazz fusion bands that arose from the Miles Davis
personnel of the late 60's/early 70's, Weather Report led by Joe and
Wayne Shorter (and eventually included Jaco Pastorius) stands the test
of time better than any other. I say with all due respect to John
McLauglin's Mahavishnu Orchestra, Chick Corea's Return to Forever,
Tony William's Lifetime and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters.

Joe Zawinul wrote my favorite song: "In A Silent Way" which he
contributed to the Miles album of the same name.

He recorded on five Miles Davis albums including the ground breaking
"Bitches Brew" recording.

Here's a short excerpt about Miles from a 1997 Anil Prasad  interview:
innerviews.org/inner/zawinul.html

Anil: How did Miles influence your life?

Joe: I wouldn't say that he influenced my life.

Anil: Many point to the work you did with Miles in the late '60s as
the music that most significantly impacted your musical evolution.

Joe: It is the other way around, frankly speaking. I think he got more
from me than I got from him in that respect.

Joe also revolutionized the use of electronics in jazz. No one could
make a synthesizer or keyboard sound warm and organic like Joe. Listen
to "Peace" from his 1986 "Dialects" solo cd. It is solo synth that is
emotive and moving.

Here's another excerpt from the aforementioned interview:

"...we had some funny backlash from people who said we were selling
out because we were using electronic instruments. It's such idiocy.
It's ridiculous that someone could place that much importance on the
instrument to be that great. An instrument is not important. It is the
way one plays that is important. Instruments don't play by themselves.
A piano is certainly not a better instrument than a synthesizer, but
if a synthesizer is played like a piano, it becomes a very bad
instrument. It doesn't work. You can't play a trumpet like a violinit
doesn't go. That's the problemthe players, not the instrument. Any
instrument is a wonderful thing."

Zawinul grew up playing Roma (Gypsy) tunes and studying classical
music in Vienna (his birthplace). After seeing the film "Stormy
Weather" some 24 times, he got hooked on jazz. He won a scholarship to
the Berklee School of Music and emigrated to the States in 1959. He
joined Maynard Ferguson's band and then became a fixture with
Cannonball Adderley and stayed until 1970. As part of Adderley's
group, Zawinul wrote the classic "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" which hit
number 11 on the Billboard pop charts in 1967

I interviewed Joe around 1986. It was like talking to the Muhammed Ali
of jazz. Joe, after all, was also a boxer and talked the talk, and
walked the walk. He was a straight talker and let you know how good he
was. But he always backed it up and was as entertaining in person as
he was on stage.

Here is a vintage Zawinul excerpt again from
innerviews.org/inner/zawinul.html:

"...people find out so late. You know HipHop? What is HipHop? I
invented the beat of HipHop! In 1970, I invented it and no drummer
could play it and I did this album with Weather Report called
Sweetnighter that has a track called "125th Street Congress." It has
the original HipHop beat and I have about 50 recordings of rap and
HipHop groups using a sample of the original song. Many other things I
did in the 60sI'm not complaining about it, but since we're talking
about it, I might as well tell youa lot of people got credit for it,
which is alright with me. But it's a factI did this stuff so many
years ago. What is called world music todayI started the damn thing!"

Zawinul, along with other pioneering cross-pollinating artists like John
McLaughlin, Don Cherry, etc. increasingly explored other music
cultures and integrated these influences into their music. Joe
especially loved African music. He produced Salif Keita's
"Amen" recording. Sabine Kabongo (former Zap Mama), Richard Bona, Cheick
Tidiane Seck, Souleyman Doumbia, Etienne Mbappe, Pape Abdou Seck (from
Wock), among others, all recorded and/or performed with Zawinul.  He also
worked on a Mahotella Queens album. (not sure which one - anyone know?)

I'll leave you with a final interview excerpt where Zawinul answers a
question about his own mortality: innerviews.org/inner/zawinul.html

Anil Prasad: "Do you ever think about your own mortality?"

Joe Zawinul: "I'm not afraid of death. The reason could be that I grew
up in an environment in which I was always exposed to death every day
for years. Experiencing bomb attacks in the night and day and actual
war in your country is very different than watching a war from 1000
miles away from your home. We had the war right there in my house. The
Russians came in and many of my friends died, so this type of life
prepares you for death. An 11 or 12 year-old kid in America will play
with a rubber duck, whereas I used to bury peopledead soldiers and
all that. When I was 12, I used to steal horses from the Russian
wagons and kill them for food. I ploughed fields with Oxen. That was
my life. The kids were the men. I was trained for the militaryI was a
bazooka man. But going back to mortality, I felt when the war was
over, everything was easy, but I went through some very hard times in
America too. I was the only white guy to play with black bands in the
South during segregation. I often had to sit in the bottom of the car
when we drove through certain parts of the South. Those kinds of
things never phased meI wanted to play music with the best and I
could play on that level with the best."

Heaven just got a hell of a musician.

On 9/12/07, Angel Romero <aromero at ibiblio.org > wrote:
>
> Very sad news for the music world.
>
>
http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/article.php/jazz_prodigy_joe_zawinul_dies_at
_75
>
> --
>
> Angel Romero
> World Music Central
> 2524 Cascadilla St.
> Durham, NC 27704-4406
> USA
> E-mail: angel at worldmusiccentral.org <mailto:angel at worldmusiccentral.org>
> World Music Central: www.worldmusiccentral.org
> <http://www.worldmusiccentral.org>
> Mzsicas del Mundo: www.musicasdelmundo.org <http://www.musicasdelmundo.org
> >
> World Music Central at MySpace: www.myspace.com/worldmusiccentral
> < http://www.myspace.com/worldmusiccentral>
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Dore Stein
Producer/Host
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