The Electric Reporter: Joe Zawinul (1932-2007)

A year has almost passed since the passing of one of Jazz’s great underrated innovators, Joe Zawinul in September 2007. Sadly I’ve only managed to read a single obituary on the man since his death so here’s my two penny’s worth of thoughts on the brains and main innovator behind Weather Report.

The Austrian might not sport a household name as a Jazz artist unlike his fellow contemporaries Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and Chick Corea yet besides Davis, there are few as innovative in bringing new sounds to this old genre and adding a certain crossover appeal to mainstream listeners. Having being educated in music from an early age, Zawinul quickly left his hometown Vienna to follow his love of Jazz to the US. It was in the US that he started to attract attention from the Jazz aficionados, amongst other was saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and swiftly earned Zawinul a spot on Miles Davis’ legendary Bitches Brew sessions along with future Weather Report collaborator Wayne Shorter.

To you cats who are familiar with Bitches Brew, you would probably have seen Zawinul’s Weather Report sound shaping up. Yet with WR he and Shorter added electronic sounds and synthesizers to their classical Jazz repertoire which was quite unheard of at the time and quite despised of by Jazz purists around. Yet Weather Report continued to shape and reshape the sounds of Jazz with a handful of superb albums notably Weather Report (’70), I Sing the Body Electric (‘72) and the two Jaco Pastorius featured albums Black Market (‘76) and Heavy Weather (‘77).

R.I.P Joe, a revolutionary musician who passed away before his time, much like the appreciation of his music.