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Jazz Great Joe Zawinul Dies at 75
"One thing about Viennese musicians, they can really groove, more than even the German bands can," Zawinul said in a 2007 Downbeat magazine interview. "It's something in our nature, perhaps. We're cosmopolitan and interracial _ Czech, Slavic, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Turkish a little bit."
In 1959, Zawinul emigrated to the United States on a scholarship to study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, but left to join Maynard Ferguson's big band. He next landed a gig with Dinah Washington; his funky piano can be heard on her 1959 hit "What a Diff'rence a Day Made."
  Austrian born composer and Jazz musician Joe Zawinul listens to a journalist's question during a press conference in Vienna, on Monday, Oct. 2, 2006. Jazz legend Zawinul, who soared to fame in the 1950s as one of the world's greatest jazz pianists and both performed and recorded with Miles Davis, has died at a Viennese hospital at the age of 75, on Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2007. (AP Photo/Hans Punz, file) (Hans Punz - AP) PHOTOS |
Zawinul rose to international fame after joining alto saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's band in 1961. During his nine-year stint with the band, he composed such tunes as "Walk Tall," "Country Preacher," and most notably the gospel-influenced, soul-jazz anthem "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," his first important recording on electric piano, which climbed the pop charts and won a Grammy for Adderley.
In the late '60s, Zawinul recorded with Davis' studio band, His tune "In a Silent Way" served as the title track for the trumpeter's first foray into the electric arena. Zawinul's composition "Pharoah's Dance" was featured on Davis' groundbreaking 1970 jazz-rock fusion album "Bitches Brew," which won Davis a 1970 Grammy for best jazz performance, large group or soloist with large group.
Weather Report enjoyed its biggest commercial success with the 1977 album "Heavy Weather" which featured Zawinul's catchy tune "Birdland," which became one of the most recognizable jazz hits of the '70s after it was also recorded by Maynard Ferguson and the vocal group Manhattan Transfer.
After Weather Report broke up in 1986, Zawinul went on to form The Zawinul Syndicate, which brought together a global village of musicians who recorded such albums as the Grammy-nominated "My People" (1996) and "World Tour" (1998).
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Associated Press Writer Charles J. Gans in New York contributed to this report.
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