Joe Zawinul 1932-2007
Jazz pianist Joe Zawinul's late-life artistic surge was cut short last month, when he was unexpectedly hospitalized following a six-week tour of Hungary, and he died yesterday of Merkel cell carcinoma. He was classically trained, and performed with Dinah Washington, Maynard Ferguson, and Cannonball Adderley after immigrating to the United States in 1959. His composition "Pharaoh's Dance" took up an entire side of Miles Davis's electric breakthrough double album, Bitches Brew. As founder of Weather Report in 1970 along with saxophonist Wayne Shorter and bassist Miroslav Vitous, Zawinul expanded jazz's parameters to include rock rhythms, electronic keyboard effects, and the musics of Brazil, India, and Africa. Although Weather Report was pigeonholed as "jazz fusion," it seemed to exist in order to defy any simple categorization. Earlier this year he released Brown Street, a live double CD containing expansive big-band versions of "In a Silent Way," which he also composed, and Weather Report material such as "Black Market." It's a terrific album, and I looked forward to his next pass through town.