Jazz Articles about Joe Zawinul

Joe Zawinul: Brown Street

by John Kelman
February 20, 2007

The fusion supergroup Weather Report's hit “Birdland" may have been covered by big bands before, but the majority of the extensive repertoire created during its 1971-86 run has remained largely untouched. Given founding member Joe Zawinul's innovative orchestrations on primitive analogue synthesizers, it's surprising more large ensembles haven't taken advantage of his ready-made arrangements. Until now. Teaming with arranger Vince Mendoza, Brown Street represents the first time Zawinul has taken a concerted look back, and it's an ...

Weather Report: Forecast: Tomorrow

by AAJ Italy Staff
November 20, 2006

Questo splendido cofanetto che traccia in maniera esaustiva la carriera dei Weather Report, ha avuto una gestazione lunga e tribolata. Se ne parlava da parecchi anni e la mania di perfezionismo di Joe Zawinul ha rimesso in discussione parecchie volte le scelte dei curatori. Ma finalmente il box è stato distribuito e abbiamo la possibilità di ripercorrere la lunga cavalcata di questo gruppo di temerari che, almeno nelle fasi iniziali, ha ridisegnato la storia della musica sospesa fra jazz e ...

Joe Zawinul & the Zawinul Syndicate: Vienna Nights

by AAJ Italy Staff
April 27, 2006

Fin dai tempi dei Weather Report Joe Zawinul ha perseguito una sua personale interpretazione della world music, filtrata attraverso il jazz e l'elettronica, ma è solo con la fondazione del suo gruppo personale The Zawinul Syndicate che ha potuto dare libero sfogo alla sua visione musicale, spingendola all'estremo. Se la grandezza dei Weather Report stava nel bilanciamento tra le forti personalità dei suoi membri, ognuno apportatore di una propria personale concezione della musica d'assieme, che ha reso quell'avventura unica e ...

Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate: Vienna Nights: Live at Joe Zawinul's Birdland

by John Kelman
August 28, 2005

As good as keyboardist/composer Joe Zawinul's last album (the '02 studio effort Faces and Places) was, his latest proves that some music is really meant to be experienced live. It's not about stretching out, although Zawinul's latest edition of the Zawinul Syndicate does take the opportunity to expand on the five tunes from Faces and Places that take up nearly half of this hundred-minute, two-CD set. It's about the kind of energy that only happens in front of an audience, ...

Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate: Vienna Nights: Live at Joe Zawinul's Birdland

by Jim Santella
August 18, 2005

Recorded at Birdland in Vienna, Austria last May and September for his own label, Joe Zawinul's powerhouse unit gives this live audience quite a thrill. Keyboards, percussion, provocative bass lines, and evocative vocals fill the room with unique sounds.

Zawinul affects a vocoder air in conversation with Arto Tuncboyaciyan on “Do You Want Some Tea, Grandpa?" with impressive results. The slow, sensitive ballad reveals one side of the Zawinul Syndicate. Driving tirades and muscular fits of passion reveal ...

Joe Zawinul: The Rise & Fall of the Third Stream

by David Rickert
May 10, 2003

The term “Third Stream" was coined to describe the marriage of classical and jazz music in composition and performance. Despite bordering on pretension, in most cases this ambitious movement created some of the worst records in history. Fans of either genre remained content to keep their music free from the perceived impurities of the other.

Third Stream music had more or less fallen by the wayside by the mid-sixties, but a chance meeting between Zawinul and composer ...

Joe Zawinul: Faces & Places

by AAJ Staff
October 1, 2002

Joe Zawinul wants us to know a secret, if you take the portrait in the liner notes at face value: fusion never died. Zawinul made his reputation at the keyboards with Miles Davis and soared to stardom as the guiding light of Weather Report, a pinnacle of jazz-rock fusion which the genre has rarely surpassed. Lately he's been delving into fusion of another sort, one that might be called “world music" without any of the ethnocentrism this term usually implies. ...