Josef Erich Zawinul ( '; 7 July 1932 – 11 September 2007) was an Austrian

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and ke ...

keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist

Cannonball Adderley Julian Edwin "Cannonball" Adderley (September 15, 1928August 8, 1975) was an American jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is perhaps best remembered for the 1966 soul jazz single " Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", w ...

, Zawinul went on to play with

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of music ...

and to become one of the creators of

, a musical genre that combined jazz with rock. He co-founded the groups

Weather Report Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian virtuoso keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer and vocalis ...

and The Zawinul Syndicate. He pioneered the use of

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument which produces sounds when a performer presses the keys of a piano-style musical keyboard. Pressing keys causes mechanical hammers to strike metal strings, metal reeds or wire tines, leading to vibrations ...

and

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

, and was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" twenty-eight times by the readers of ''

DownBeat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Ch ...

'' magazine.

Biography

Early life and career

Zawinul grew up in Vienna, Austria. Accordion was his first instrument. When he was six or seven, he studied clarinet, violin, and piano at the Vienna Conservatory (

Konservatorium Wien The Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna ( (MUK)) in Vienna, Austria, is a university of music and the arts. It was previously (2005−2015) named (KONSuni, Konservatorium Wien University), and before that (Conservatory of Vienna). ...

). During the 1950s he was a staff pianist for

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United State ...

. He worked as a jazz musician with Hans Koller, Friedrich Gulda, Karl Drewo, and Fatty George. In 1959 he moved to the U.S. to attend

Berklee College of Music Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level cours ...

, but a week later he received a job offer from

Maynard Ferguson Walter Maynard Ferguson CM (May 4, 1928 – August 23, 2006) was a Canadian jazz trumpeter and bandleader. He came to prominence in Stan Kenton's orchestra before forming his own big band in 1957. He was noted for his bands, which often serv ...

, so he left school and went on tour. He then accompanied

Dinah Washington Dinah Washington (born Ruth Lee Jones; August 29, 1924 – December 14, 1963) was an American singer and pianist, who has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the 1950s songs". Primarily a jazz vocalist, she performe ...

. He spent most of the 1960s with

. During this time he wrote " Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" and "Walk Tall", and "Country Preacher" and played electric piano. At the end of the decade he recorded with Miles Davis on '' In a Silent Way'' as Davis was establishing the genre of

, combining jazz with rock.

With Weather Report

In 1970, Zawinul founded

with

Wayne Shorter Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles D ...

. Their first two years emphasized a relatively open, group improvisation format similar to what Miles Davis was doing in a more rock oriented format. However, Zawinul started making changes with their third album, '' Sweetnighter''. Funk elements such as bass guitar and wah-wah pedal began to be introduced to the band's sound. With the fourth album, '' Mysterious Traveller'', the musical forms were composed similar to classical music, and the combination of jazz harmonies with 1970s groove helped move the band into its most commercially successful period. The band's biggest commercial success came from Zawinul's composition " Birdland" on the 1977 album '' Heavy Weather'', which peaked at number 30 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

'' pop albums chart. "Birdland" is one of the most recognizable jazz pieces of the 1970s, recorded by The Manhattan Transfer, Quincy Jones,

, and Buddy Rich among others. 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. Shorter and Zawinul went separate ways after recording '' Sportin' Life'', but it was discovered they had to do one more album to fulfill their contract with CBS Records. '' This Is This!'' therefore became the band's final album. In 1991, Zawinul was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from

and on this occasion performed with a group consisting of

Matthew Garrison Matthew Justin Garrison (born June 2, 1970) is an American jazz bassist. Since 2011, he has run ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, New York, with Fortuna Sung. Described by ''the New York Times'' as "an electric bass virtuoso", he has toured with He ...

Torsten de Winkel Torsten de Winkel (born 6 January 1965) is a German musician, composer, and philosopher primarily active in the jazz, world music, fusion and electronic music genres. He is known as an electric and acoustic guitarist but also records and perfo ...

, Abe Laboriel Jr. and Melvin Butler.

With The Zawinul Syndicate

Zawinul syndicate 2007-03-28 live in freiburg

The Zawinul Syndicate was a jazz fusion band formed in 1988. It evolved out of

. Their style could be described as a combination of unusual grooves, driving and

swinging Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Sex swing, a type of harness for sexual intercourse * Swing ri ...

rhythms and many borrowings from different music cultures. Zawinul himself stated that he gave the band its name due to a syndicate bearing more resemblance to a family than "just" a band. After the death of Zawinul in 2007, several members of The Zawinul Syndicate decided to reform and performing Zawinul's music live under their shortened name The Syndicate. Several major members of the Syndicate over the years include Scott Henderson, Bobby Thomas Jr, Linley Marthe, Paco Sery,

Manolo Badrena Manolo Badrena (born March 17, 1952, in San Juan, Puerto Rico) is a percussionist most noted for his work with Weather Report from 1976 to 1977. He has made contributions to over 100 recordings that span jazz, world music, pop, and Latin music. B ...

, Nathaniel Townsley, Sabine Kabongo, Gary Poulson,

Richard Bona Richard Bona (born 28 October 1967) is a Cameroon-born American multi-instrumentalist and singer. Early life Bona Penda Nya Yuma Elolo was born in Minta, Cameroon, into a family of musicians, which enabled him to start learning music from a ...

, and Victor Bailey.

Stories of the Danube

Zawinul also wrote a

symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning c ...

, called '' Stories of the Danube'', which was commissioned by the

Brucknerhaus The Brucknerhaus () is a festival and congress centre in Linz, Austria named after the Austrian composer Anton Bruckner. The building was designed by Finnish architects Heikki and Kaija Siren. Its construction took place from 1969 to 1973. It ope ...

Linz Linz ( , ; cs, Linec) is the capital of Upper Austria and third-largest city in Austria. In the north of the country, it is on the Danube south of the Czech border. In 2018, the population was 204,846. In 2009, it was a European Capital ...

. It was first performed as part of the ''

Linzer Klangwolke The Linzer Klangwolke () (Linz Cloud of Sound) is an open-air multimedia musical event held each year since 1979 in early September in the Linz Danube Park in the Austrian town of Linz. It is organized by the Brucknerhaus Linz. The Cloud of Sou ...

'' (a large-scale open-air broadcast event), for the opening of the 1993 Bruckner Festival in Linz. In its seven movements, the symphony traces the course of the

Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , pa ...

from

Donaueschingen Donaueschingen (; Low Alemannic: ''Eschinge'') is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar '' Kreis''. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river D ...

through various countries ending at the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

. It was recorded in 1995 by the Czech State Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno, conducted by Caspar Richter. 2018-11-17-joe-zawinul-centralfriedhof

Death

Zawinul became ill and was hospitalized in his native Vienna on 7 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) on 11 September 2007. He was cremated at

Feuerhalle Simmering Feuerhalle Simmering is a crematorium with attached urn burial ground in the Simmering district of Vienna, Austria. It lies at the end of an alley, directly opposite Vienna Central Cemetery's main gate. Description Opened on 17 December 1922 by ...

and his ashes buried in

Vienna Central Cemetery The Vienna Central Cemetery (german: Wiener Zentralfriedhof) is one of the largest cemeteries in the world by number of interred, and is the most well-known cemetery among Vienna's nearly 50 cemeteries. The cemetery's name is descriptive of its ...

Discography

As leader/co-leader

* ''To You With Love '' (Strand, 1959) * '' Soulmates'' with Ben Webster ( Riverside, 1963) * '' Money in the Pocket'' (

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

, 1966) * '' The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream'' (

Vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex ( : vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in ...

, 1968) * '' Zawinul'' (Atlantic, 1971) – recorded in 1970 * ''Concerto Retitled'' (Atlantic, 1976) – compilation * '' Di•a•lects'' (

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region i ...

, 1986) – recorded in 1985 * The Zawinul Syndicate, ''The Immigrants'' (Columbia, 1988) * ''Music for Two Pianos'' with Friedrich Gulda (Capriccio, 1988) * The Zawinul Syndicate, ''Black Water'' (Columbia, 1989) * The Zawinul Syndicate, ''Lost Tribes'' (Columbia, 1992) * '' My People'' (ESC, 1996) – recorded between 1992–96 * '' Stories of the Danube'' (

Polygram PolyGram N.V. was a multinational entertainment company and major music record label formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a ...

, 1996) * The Zawinul Syndicate, ''World Tour'' (ESC, 1998) CD– live * ''Mauthausen - Vom großen Sterben hören'' (ESC, 2000) * '' Faces & Places'' (ESC, 2002) – recorded between 2001–02 * ''Midnight Jam'' (ESC, 2004) CD* The Zawinul Syndicate, ''Vienna Nights: Live at Joe Zawinul's Birdland'' (BHM, 2005) CD– live * ''Brown Street'' with WDR Big Band, et al. (Intuition, 2006) CD– live recorded in 2005 Posthumous releases * The Zawinul Syndicate, '' 75'' (Heads Up, 2009) CD– live recorded in 2007 * The Absolute Ensemble, ''Absolute Zawinul'' conducted by Kristjan Järvi (Intuition, 2009) – recorded in 2007. overdubs recorded between 2007–08. As leader of

* 1971: ''

'' (Columbia, 1971) * 1972: '' I Sing the Body Electric'' (Columbia, 1972) * 1972: '' Live in Tokyo'' (

CBS/Sony , often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short (stylized as ''SonyMusic''), is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Founded in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is opera ...

, 1972) – live * 1973: '' Sweetnighter'' (Columbia, 1973) * 1974: '' Mysterious Traveller'' (Columbia, 1974) * 1975: '' Tale Spinnin''' (Columbia, 1975) * 1975–76: ''

Black Market A black market, underground economy, or shadow economy is a clandestine market or series of transactions that has some aspect of illegality or is characterized by noncompliance with an institutional set of rules. If the rule defines the ...

'' (Columbia, 1976) * 1976–77: '' Heavy Weather'' (Columbia, 1977) * 1978: '' Mr. Gone'' (Columbia, 1978) * 1978–79: '' 8:30'' (Columbia, 1979) – live * 1980: '' Night Passage'' (Columbia, 1980) * 1981: ''

'' (Columbia, 1982) * 1983: '' Procession'' (Columbia, 1983) * 1983: '' Domino Theory'' (Columbia, 1984) * 1984: '' Sportin' Life'' (Columbia, 1985) * 1985: '' This Is This!'' (Columbia, 1986) Posthumous compilations * '' Live and Unreleased'' (Columbia, 2002) CD* '' Forecast: Tomorrow'' (Columbia, 2006) CD & DVD-Video* '' The Legendary Live Tapes: 1978-1981'' (Columbia, 2015) CD

As sideman

With

* '' Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley'' (Capitol, 1962) - recorded in 1961 * '' The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York'' (Riverside, 1962) * ''

Cannonball in Europe! ''Cannonball in Europe!'' is a live album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded at the Comblain-la-Tour in Belgium and released on the Capitol label featuring performances by Adderley with Nat Adderley, Yusef Lateef, Joe Zawinul, Sam J ...

'' (Riverside, 1962) * ''

Jazz Workshop Revisited ''Jazz Workshop Revisited'' is a live album by the jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley released on the Riverside label. Alongside Adderley, it features performances by Nat Adderley, Yusef Lateef, Joe Zawinul, Sam Jones and Louis Hayes.

'' (Riverside, 1962) * '' Nippon Soul'' (Riverside, 1964) - recorded in 1963 * '' Cannonball Adderley Live!'' (Capitol, 1964) - live * ''

Live Session! ''Live Session!'' is a live album by jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded at Memory Lane, Los Angeles in 1962 and the Lighthouse, Hermosa Beach in 1964 and released on the Capitol label featuring performances by Adderley with Nat Adderle ...

'' (Capitol, 1964) - live * '' Cannonball Adderley's Fiddler on the Roof'' (Capitol, 1964) * '' Domination'' (Capitol, 1965) * '' Great Love Themes'' (Capitol, 1966) * '' Cannonball in Japan'' (Capitol, 1966) - live * '' Mercy, Mercy, Mercy! Live at 'The Club''' (Capitol, 1967) - recorded in 1966 * '' 74 Miles Away'' (Capitol, 1967) * '' Why Am I Treated So Bad!'' (Capitol, 1967) * '' In Person'' (Capitol, 1968) * '' Accent on Africa'' (Capitol, 1968) * ''

Country Preacher ''Country Preacher'' is a live album recorded by the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in 1969. Recorded at an unidentified church meeting of the Chicago chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Operation Breadbasket, the album spent ...

'' (Capitol, 1969) - live * '' The Cannonball Adderley Quintet & Orchestra'' (Capitol, 1970) * '' The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free'' (Capitol, 1970) * '' Autumn Leaves'' (Riverside

apan Apan is a city and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico. The municipality covers an area of 346.9 km². Overview As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 39,247. It was an important site in the W ...

1975) - recorded in 1963 * '' The Sextet'' (Milestone, 1982) - recorded in 1962-63 * '' Radio Nights'' (Night, 1991) - recorded in 1967–68 * '' Money in the Pocket'' (Capitol, 2005) - recorded in 1966 With Nat Adderley * '' Naturally!'' ( Jazzland, 1961) * ''

Autobiography An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English peri ...

'' (

, 1965) * '' Live at Memory Lane'' (Atlantic, 1966) - live * '' The Scavenger'' (

Milestone A milestone is a numbered marker placed on a route such as a road, railway line, canal or boundary. They can indicate the distance to towns, cities, and other places or landmarks; or they can give their position on the route relative to so ...

, 1968) * '' You, Baby'' ( CTI, 1968) * '' Calling Out Loud'' (CTI, 1968) With

* 1969: '' In a Silent Way'' (Columbia, 1969) * 1969: ''

Bitches Brew ''Bitches Brew'' is a studio album by American jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Miles Davis. It was recorded from August 19 to 21, 1969, at Columbia's Studio B in New York City and released on March 30, 1970 by Columbia Records. It mark ...

'' (Columbia, 1970) * 1970: '' Live-Evil'' (Columbia, 1971) * compilation: '' Big Fun'' (Columbia, 1974) * compilation: ''

Circle in the Round ''Circle in the Round'' is a 1979 compilation album by jazz musician Miles Davis. It compiled outtakes from sessions across fifteen years of Davis's career that, with one exception, had been previously unreleased. All of its tracks have since been ...

'' (Columbia, 1979) With Yusef Lateef * '' The Centaur and the Phoenix'' (Riverside, 1960) * '' Suite 16'' (Atlantic, 1970) With Herbie Mann * '' A Mann & A Woman'' (Atlantic, 1967) also with Tamiko Jones - recorded in 1966 * '' The Beat Goes On'' (Atlantic, 1967) - recorded in 1964-67 With

* ''

What a Diff'rence a Day Makes! ''What a Diff'rence a Day Makes!'' is a tenth studio album by Dinah Washington, arranged by Belford Hendricks, featuring her hit single of the same name. The title track won Washington the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance at the 2nd Annu ...

'' (Mercury, 1960) * ''The Two of Us'' (Mercury, 1960) – also with Brook Benton With others * Victor Feldman, ''

Soviet Jazz Themes ''Soviet Jazz Themes'' (full title: ''The Victor Feldman All Stars Play the 'World's First Album of Soviet Jazz Themes'') is an album by vibraphonist and pianist Victor Feldman featuring tunes by three composers he discovered while on Benny Goodm ...

'' (Äva, 1962) *

Jimmy Forrest James, Jim or Jimmy Forrest may refer to: Sports * James Forrest (rugby union) (born 1907), Scotland international rugby union player * James Forrest (baseball) (1897–1977), American baseball player * James Forrest (basketball) (born 1972), Am ...

, ''

Out of the Forrest ''Out of the Forrest'' is an album by saxophonist Jimmy Forrest recorded in 1961 and released on the Prestige label.

'' (Prestige, 1961) *

Eddie Harris Eddie Harris (October 20, 1934 – November 5, 1996) was an American jazz musician, best known for playing tenor saxophone and for introducing the electrically amplified saxophone. He was also fluent on the electric piano and organ. His best-k ...

, '' Silver Cycles'' (Atlantic, 1968) * Sam Jones, '' Down Home'' (Riverside, 1962) * David "Fathead" Newman, '' The Many Facets of David Newman'' (Atlantic, 1969) * Quincy Jones, '' Back on the Block'' (Quest/Warner Bros, 1989) * Katia Labèque, ''Little Girl Blue'' (Dreyfus, 1995) * Trilok Gurtu, ''Crazy Saints'' (Creative Music Production, 1993)

References

Biographies

* * *

External links

Joe Zawinul's official website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zawinul, Joe Austrian jazz keyboardists Austrian jazz composers Male jazz composers Hard bop pianists Jazz-funk keyboardists Jazz fusion keyboardists Soul-jazz keyboardists Weather Report members Berklee College of Music alumni People from Landstraße Deaths from Merkel-cell carcinoma Deaths from cancer in Austria Burials at the Vienna Central Cemetery Miles Davis 1932 births 2007 deaths Male pianists Cannonball Adderley Quintet members The Zawinul Syndicate members Austrian Sinti people 20th-century jazz composers 20th-century male musicians