Joe Zawinul: Zawinul
Author: Andy Robson
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Walter Booker (b) |
Label: |
Atlantic/Warner Jazz |
Magazine Review Date: |
March/2014 |
Catalogue Number: |
8122-79640-3 |
RecordDate: |
1970 |
Please don't call this the first Weather Report album. Yes, there's a personnel overlap. But the differences, notably Shaw's trumpet, are as crucial as the similarities. And yes, there's an overlap of material, notably the epic ‘Doctor Honoris Causa’ a core Weather Report feature. But this is also an album of personal resonance for Zawinul, whether it's the found sounds of ‘Arrival In New York’, his reminiscence of his grandfather on ‘His Last Journey’, or the lustrous elegy to his Austrian childhood, ‘In A Silent Way’. All three tracks are spacious and ruminative, drawing as much on central European modernism as they do on the newly discovered attractions of electric jazz. Fusion it ain't, Zawinul it is. And timeless. This edition is a Japanese (so Japanese language liner notes) Atlantic re-issue, with no extras. But why add to what worked sublimely first time round?

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