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Biography
Infobox musical artist||name = Joe Zawinul|image = Joe zawinul 2007-03-28 live in freiburg.jpg|caption = Joe Zawinul live with "The Zawinul Syndicate" ( Freiburg im Breisgau|Freiburg /Germany, 2007)|landscape = yes|background = non_vocal_instrumentalist|birth_name = Josef Erich Zawinul|birth_date = birth date|1932|7|7|mf=y|birth_place = Vienna , Austria|death_date = death date and age|2007|9|11|1932|7|7|mf=y|death_place =Vienna, Austria|instrument = Keyboard instrument|Keyboards : synthesizer , piano , accordion , EWI |genre = Jazz , jazz fusion , romantic music , art music , world music |occupation = Keyboard instrument|Keyboardist , composer |years_active = 1949& ndash;2007|associated_acts = Zawinul Syndicate Weather Report Miles Davis Cannonball Adderley |website = http://www.zawinulmusic.com/ www.zawinulmusic.com Josef Erich Zawinul (July 7, 1932 & ndash; September 11, 2007)Allmusic|class=artist|id=p53219/biography|pure_url=yes allmusic Biography was an Austrians|Austrian -American jazz keyboard instrument|keyboardist and composer .
First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley , Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis , and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion , an innovative Music genre|musical genre that combined jazz with elements of Rock music|rock and world music . Later, Zawinul co-founded the groups Weather Report and the world fusion music -oriented Zawinul Syndicate. Additionally, he made pioneering use of electric piano and synthesizer s. Zawinul was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" 28 times by the readers of Down Beat magazine. http://www.zawinulmusic.com/biography Joe Zawinul Biography
Several artists have honored Zawinul with songs, notably Brian Eno 's instrumental " Another Green World|Zawinul/Lava ", John McLaughlin (musician)|John McLaughlin 's instrumental "Jozy", Warren Cuccurullo 's "Hey Zawinul", Bob Baldwin 's "Joe Zawinul", Chucho Valdés 's "Zawinul's Mambo", Biréli Lagrène 's instrumental "Josef" and Toninho Horta 's instrumental "Balada para Zawinul". Zawinul's playing style is often dominated by quirky melodic improvisations — traversing bebop, ethnic and pop styles — combined with sparse but rhythmic playing of big-band sounding chords or bass lines. In Weather Report, he often employed a vocoder as well as pre-recorded sounds played (i.e. filtered and transposed) through a synthesizer, creating a very distinctive synthesis of jazz chord|jazz harmonics and "noise" ("using all the sounds the world generates").
Biography
Early life and career
Zawinul was born and grew up in Landstraße , as a son of the worker Josef Zawinul, in Vienna , Austria, where he went to school with the late former Austrian Federal President Thomas Klestil . His grandmother was a Hungarian Sinti ("Gypsy"), and his grandfather was from southern Moravia .
Classically trained at the Konservatorium Wien , Zawinul played in various broadcasting and studio bands before emigrating to the U.S. in 1959 on a music scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston.
He went on to play with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson , where he first met Wayne Shorter after having had an influence in hiring him. Shorter left soon thereafter to play in Art Blakey's group and Josef was apparently dismissed from the Ferguson band for wanting to have too much control over personnel decisions. Zawinul then toured and recorded with singer Dinah Washington for two years.
With Cannonball Adderley
In 1961, Zawinul joined the Quintet led by saxophonist Cannonball Adderley . During his nine-year stint with Adderley, he wrote the hit song " Mercy, Mercy, Mercy ." He also composed "Walk Tall" and "Country Preacher", the latter a tribute to American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)|U.S. Civil Rights Movement leader Jesse Jackson , from the 1969 Country Preacher|album of the same name .
With Miles Davis
In the late 1960s, Zawinul recorded with Miles Davis 's studio band and helped create the sound of jazz fusion . He played on the album In a Silent Way , the title track of which he composed, and the landmark album Bitches Brew , for which he contributed the twenty-minute track, "Pharaoh's Dance", which occupied the whole of side one.
Zawinul is known to have played live with Davis only once, on July 10, 1991, in Paris, along with Wayne Shorter , shortly before Davis' death.
Zawinul, along with other Davis sidemen Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock , was one of the first to use electric piano s and early synthesizers like the ARP 2600 in 1973's Sweetnighter . He was among the first to use an electric piano, the Wurlitzer. He used the Fender-Rhodes thereafter, adding a wah-wah pedal and later the Mutron effect unit for a complex phased timbre. His creativity and attention to detail resulted in a very contemporary and modern sound. He also played the kalimba on Weather Report 's albums Mysterious Traveller and Mr. Gone .
With Weather Report
In 1970, Zawinul co-founded Weather Report with saxophonist and Davis alumnus Wayne Shorter . Their first two years emphasized a relatively open, group improvisation format not dissimilar to what Miles Davis was doing in a more rock oriented format. However, Josef started making changes with their third album, Sweetnighter , citing he was "tired of waiting for something to happen". Funk elements such as electric bass, wah-wah pedal, etc. started to be introduced in the band's sound. Music critics generally agree that their 4th album, Mysterious Traveller , was their true breakthrough album, capturing the classic Weather Report "sound" for the first time. The musical forms were now through-composed similar to classical music, and the combination of jazz harmonies with 70's groove elements launched the band into its most successful period. Their biggest commercial success came from his composition " Birdland (composition)|Birdland ", a 6-minute opus featured on Weather Report's 1977 album Heavy Weather (album)|Heavy Weather , which peaked at number 30 on the Billboard (magazine)|Billboard pop albums chart. "Birdland" is one of the most recognizable jazz pieces of the 1970s, covered by many prominent artists from The Manhattan Transfer and Quincy Jones to Maynard Ferguson , the Buddy Rich Big Band, and Jefferson Starship . Even Weather Report's version received significant mainstream radio airplay & mdash; unusual for them & mdash; and served to convert many new fans to music which they may never have heard otherwise. The song won him three Grammy Award|Grammys .
Weather Report was active until the mid 80s, with Zawinul and Shorter remaining the sole constant members through multiple personnel shifts. The group was notable for bringing to prominence pioneering fretless bass guitarist Jaco Pastorius , but also other musicians, such as Alphonso Johnson and Peter Erskine . Shorter and Zawinul had already gone separate ways, after the recording of their "final" '' Sportin' Life , when it was discovered that they had to do one more album in order to fulfill the CBS contract. This Is This! therefore became their final album. Shorter participated despite being busy leading his own group, and Peter Erskine was also brought in again for this record, ending up playing on most compositions.
Later career
Main|Stories of the DanubeZawinul also wrote a symphony , called Stories of the Danube , which was commissioned by the Brucknerhaus, Linz . It was first performed as part of the Linzer Klangwolke (a large-scale open-air broadcast event), for the opening of the 1993 Anton Bruckner|Bruckner Festival in Linz. In its seven movements, the symphony traces the course of the Danube from Donaueschingen through various countries ending at the Black Sea . It was recorded in 1995 by the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra|Czech State Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno , conducted by Caspar Richter.
Death
Zawinul was hospitalized in his native Vienna on August 7, 2007, http://www.zawinulonline.org/2007/08/07/joe-zawinul-hospitalized-in-vienna/ Zawinul Online » Blog Archive » Joe Zawinul Hospitalized in Vienna after concluding a five-week European tour. He died from a rare form of skin cancer ( Merkel cell cancer|Merkel cell carcinoma ) on September 11, 2007.cite news|first=Ray|last=McDonald|coauthors=|authorlink=|title=Keyboardist Joe Zawinul Dies|date=12 September 2007|publisher=Voice of America|url = http://voanews.com/english/archive/2007-09/2007-09-12-voa18.cfm|work =VOA News|pages =|accessdate = 2 January 2009|language = cite news|url= http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/11/AR2007091102289.html|work=The Washington Post|title=Joe Zawinul, 75; Keyboardist Was a Pioneer of Jazz Fusion|first=Matt|last=Schudel|date=September 12, 2007|accessdate=May 6, 2010 He is buried in the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery in Vienna.
Discography
As leader
To You with Love (Strand, 1959)
Money in the Pocket (Atlantic, 1966)
The Rise and Fall of the Third Stream (Vortex, 1968)
Zawinul (album)|Zawinul (Atlantic, 1971)
Di•a•lects (Columbia, 1986)
The Immigrants (Columbia, 1988)
Black Water (Columbia, 1989)
Lost Tribes (Columbia, 1992)
My People (Joe Zawinul album)|My People (ESC-Records, 1996)
Stories of the Danube (Polygram, 1996)
World Tour (ESC, 1997)
Mauthausen - Vom großen Sterben hören (ESC-Records, 2000) 3
Faces & Places (ESC-Records, 2002)
''Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate – Vienna Nights – Live at Joe Zawinul's Birdland (BirdJAM, 2005)
Brown Street (2006)
75 (album)|75 (BirdJAM, 2008)
With
Ben Webster
Soulmates (Riverside, 1963)
Friedrich Gulda
Music for Two Pianos (Capriccio, 2006) with the Westdeutscher Rundfunk|WDR Big Band
As sideman
With Dinah Washington
'' What a Diff'rence a Day Makes! (Mercury, 1960)
Dinah Washington & Brook Benton – Two of Us (Mercury, 1960)
With Cannonball Adderley
Nancy Wilson/Cannonball Adderley (Capitol, 1961)
The Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York (Riverside, 1962)
Live and Unreleased (album)|Live and Unreleased (2002)
Forecast: Tomorrow (2006)
As contributor
Amen (Salif Keita album)|Amen by Salif Keita (Mango, 1991)
Crazy Saints by Trilok Gurtu (1993)
References
Reflist
Biographies
cite book |last1=Glasser |first1=Brian |title=In a Silent Way: A Portrait of Joe Zawinul |year=2001 |publisher=Sanctuary |location=London |isbn=1-86074-326-9 |oclc=45900631
cite book |last1=Baumann |first1=Gunther |title=Zawinul: Ein Leben aus Jazz |trans_title=Zawinul: A Life of Jazz |year=2002 |publisher=Frankfurt am Main; Residenz |location=Salzburg; Wien |language=German |isbn=3-7017-1291-3 |oclc=469270497
cite book |last1=Yamashita |first1=Kunihiko |title=Joe Zawinul: On the Creative Process |year=2006 |publisher=Rittor Music |location=Tokyo |isbn=4-8456-1337-9 |oclc=169983180
External links
commonscat|Joe Zawinul
http://www.joe-zawinul.at Official website
Weather Report Persondata | NAME = Zawinul, Joe | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = American jazz musician | DATE OF BIRTH = July 7, 1932 | PLACE OF BIRTH = Vienna , Austria | DATE OF DEATH = September 11, 2007 | PLACE OF DEATH = Vienna, Austria DEFAULTSORT:Zawinul, Joe Category:Austrian jazz keyboardists Category:Austrian jazz musicians Category:American jazz keyboardists Category:American jazz musicians Category:Hard bop pianists Category:Jazz-funk keyboardists Category:Jazz fusion keyboardists Category:Soul-jazz keyboardists Category:Weather Report members Category:Berklee College of Music alumni Category:American people of Austrian descent Category:Austrian people of Czech descent Category:Austrian people of Hungarian descent Category:People from Landstraße Category:Deaths from skin cancer Category:Cancer deaths in Austria Category:Burials at the Zentralfriedhof Category:Miles Davis Category:1932 births Category:2007 deaths
