Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Joe Zawinul: Faces & Places

359

Joe Zawinul: Faces & Places

By

View read count
Joe Zawinul: Faces & Places
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. Faces & Places marks a distinctive high-water point for Zawinul, a sentinel of its possibilities and depth.

For Faces & Places, Zawinul has assembled musicians from five continents, including (most notably) Zakir Hussain on tablas, Maria Joao on vocals, and Alex Acuna on percussion. These fourteen tracks span an unpredictable range of styles from the percussion-rich Arabian soul of "Good Day," to the Indian/African fluxus of "Tower of Silence," to the spare call-and-response dance of "Cafe Andalusia." For the most part, it's radio-friendly material (read: no avant excursions here). The depth of percussion on almost every track lends these tunes a full-bodied pulse, and that unyielding foundation helps unite the record. Perhaps that's Zawinul's statement about drums being the center of music, though to be honest he rarely strays from all-too-familiar 4/4 rhythms. No big loss—view it as an artistic choice if you will. Another constant on Faces & Places is the human voice, which appears on all but two of these tunes. Sometimes it's Zawinul on his vocoder, but mostly these voices use unfamiliar languages (or none at all) that convey meaning more through cadence and spirit than literal meaning.

Each track on this record offers promise and intrigue, except for the dismal "Familiar to Me," sandwiched right in the middle. (Nice lyrics, but it's more trite than the lamest of slow jams. Fast forward.) With that said, this record is beautifully lyrical and often surprising. Listeners familiar with Zawinul's Weather Report fusion days will find it a refreshing new angle; and those who've kept up with his more recent multicultural outings will find Faces & Places a fine addition.

Track Listing

The Search; All About Simon; Introduction to Tower of Silence; Tower of Silence; The Spirit of Julian

Personnel

Joe Zawinul
keyboards

Joe Zawinul- keyboards, piano, spoken word, vocoder, keyboard bass; Paco Sery- drums, guitar, timbales, kalimba, percussion; Etienne Mbappe, Richard Bona- vocals, bass; Amit Chatterjee- vocals, guitar; Victor Bailey- bass; Nathaniel Townsley- drums; Zakir Hussain- tablas; Alex Acuna, Manolo Badrena, Rudy Regalado- percussion; Bobby Malach- tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, woodwinds; Dean Brown- guitar; Lester Benedict- trombone; Harry Kim- trumpet, flugelhorn; Maria Joao, Sabine Kabongo, Richard Page, Lori Perry, Darlene Perry, Sharon Perry, Carol Perry, Kitty Winter- vocals.

Album information

Title: Faces & Places | Year Released: 2002 | Record Label: ESC Records

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Eternal Moments
Yoko Yates
From "The Hellhole"
Marshall Crenshaw
Tramonto
John Taylor

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.