Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Joe Zawinul, 1932-2007

















Farewell.

Perhaps more than any other individual, Joe Zawinul is responsible for my initial interest in jazz. I'd never been exposed to anything quite like "Birdland" when the Weather Report instrumental became a radio hit in 1977. I soon discovered Jaco, Shorter and, of course, Zawinul. That led to Miles and beyond. Zawinul died today at the age of 75. It's impossible to select a single piece to accurately represent Zawinul, but "Tower of Silence" from 2002's Faces & Places represents many of his music's characteristic traits- deep groove, conceptual genre-bending and technical adroitness.

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Kansas City Click: Joe Cartwright and Gerald Spaits, two guys who have almost certainly listened to their fair share of Zawinul, are at the Majestic.

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