[FA Worldmusic] Joe Zawinul Tribute

Fri Sep 14 09:38:19 ADT 2007

Let's not forget either Zawinul's recent support of two African artists
in particular, Salif Keita and Richard Bona.
Marco Werman

-----Original Message-----
From: fa-worldmusic-bounces+marco.werman=bbc.co.uk at folk.org
[mailto:fa-worldmusic-bounces+marco.werman=bbc.co.uk at folk.org] On Behalf
Of Dore Stein
Sent: 13 September 2007 19:00
To: angel at worldmusiccentral.org
Cc: fa-worldmusic at folk.org
Subject: Re: [FA Worldmusic] Joe Zawinul Tribute

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_di
es_at
_75
>
> --
>
> Angel Romero
> World Music Central
> 2524 Cascadilla St.
> Durham, NC 27704-4406
> USA
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> <mailto:angel at worldmusiccentral.org>
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Dore Stein
Producer/Host
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San Francisco CA  94134-1341

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