A nice article about former Syndicate drummer Paco Sery popped up on the web recently, in conjunction with Sery’s performances in South Africa.

“Following His Own Beat,” by John Matshikiza, Mail & Guardian Online

The 51st Annual Down Beat Critics Poll, published in the August issue of Down Beat, once again voted Joe Zawinul to the top spot of the Electric Keyboards/Synthesizer category, easily out-distancing runner-up Herbie Hancock, 260 votes to 138. I don’t know how many times Zawinul has won this category over years, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s owned it since it was created sometime in the early 1970’s.

The big news of the poll, however, was that Weather Report co-founder Wayne Shorter topped six categories–an unprecedented feat over the previous 50 years of the poll. Shorter was named to the Down Beat Hall of Fame (fellow Weather Reporter Jaco Pastorius was accorded that honor in 1988, following his death the previous year). Shorter’s quartet, featuring John Patitucci, Danilo Perez and Brian Blade, was named Acoustic Jazz Group of the Year. The group’s album, Footprints Live! was named Jazz Album of the Year. And Shorter topped the individual categories Jazz Artist, Soprano Saxophonist, and Composer of the Year.

Congrats to Wayne and Joe!

Musician Cameron Hood sent me lengthy review of the Zawinul Syndicate concert at the Vancouver International Jazz festival, which I have reproduced below.

I attended this concert in Vancouver. As a professional musician (bass player) for over 30 years, I can personally attest to the fact that it was truly magnificent. I have loved Weather Report since the early 70’s, since before my great hero Jaco Pastorius joined the band. I Sing The Body Electric was my first album by Zawinul’s band, with Miroslav Vitous on bass, and I have bought every recording as it came out ever since, including the magnificent Heavy Weather and 8:30—seminal recordings in the history of jazz. Zawinul has and continues to be a major driving force in this music, and is a transcendent master of the keyboards in every jazz idiom that he has touched.

The warm-up band in Vancouver was okay—basically a bunch of hippies with little discipline or technique, just jamming. They tried to be sincere and were kind of musical, but I personally have a great deal of difficulty with musicians with barely enough technique to play mainstream attempting to be “avant-garde.” Even though they were severely lacking in the technique department, and even though the bass player was a bit of a ham-handed Neanderthal (he could barely play a one-octave arpeggio, actually), they were okay as a group thing. Were they all world class musicians, capable of sitting in on a moment’s notice in a bebop gig playing at 300 on the metronome all night? Or a rock gig, or a commercial jingle like every member of Zawinul’s band was? Er, ah, no. They had their schtick, and some less knowledgeable people probably liked it. Pretty good for Victoria, but definitely not ready for the big time.

Zawinul’s group was in a totally different league. In his work he manages to evoked images of many types of world music, folksong, and jazz, masterfully blended into coherent and beautiful compositions, with magnificent complex harmonies, intricate world-fusion melodies, and heavy African grooves courtesy of bass player Linley Marthe, who is the definitive new bass god as far as I am concerned. I have seen pretty much every great bass player to come down the pipe for the last 30 years, and I firmly believe Linley is in a league of his own. Heavy African grooves, with chops that go beyond anything I have heard—even my great hero, Jaco. He was simply astounding, astonishing, and inspirational. If I was the bass player in Lapp Electro, I would have been totally demoralized; that guy needs to spend about 20 years doing three-octave scales and arpeggios, and learn how to really play the instrument like Linley so obviously has. There is no artistry without discipline: with Lapp-Electro, it was pretense, masquerading as art; with Zawinul’s band, it was artistry of the highest caliber.

The rest of Zawinul’s band was similarly astonishing. The guitarist, Amit Chatterjee, was magnificent, and is also a superb singer in the Indian Classical tradition. The female vocalist, Sabine Kabongo, was also absolutely amazing. When backed up by probably the greatest accompanist ever, Zawinul, she produced some profoundly moving moments which I shall remember for the rest of my life. And if you think I am overstating the case with Zawinul, you haven’t heard enough of him: remember his Cannonball recordings in the 60’s? Have you heard Cannonball live with Nancy Wilson? That piano solo of Zawinul’s on the ballad, whose name presently escapes me, that goes on and on for chorus after chorus, and gets better and better with each passing phrase, is arguably one of the best piano solos in the recorded history of jazz. Zawinul was a profound musical individual in the 1960’s, and has done nothing but deepen his perspective and become better with age. He has created entire genres of music, and leaves a legacy beyond anything heard previously. He is, in my opinion, the most underreated and misunderstood keyboardist in the history of jazz. His influence will perhaps finally start to blossom as people finally review his life and career. I think his genius has been too much for some to understand; perhaps they will catch up in 15 or 20 years, like they did with Hendrix and even Coltrane.

Zawinul’s awe-inspiring technical proficiency was also amply demonstrated by his magnificent sounds on his sophisticated and complex synth setup, which included no fewer than ten (!) volume pedals to control the various synths and modules he uses. This technical proficiency in synthesis is highly underrated by the jazz community; getting a good, unique sound on modern synths is a daunting task. It is every bit as difficult as getting a good sound out of a saxophone or a trumpet, only it is not a physical challenge, but an extremely complex mental (and financial) one, and one which is constantly changing every few months as each new generation of synths come out. His choice of sounds was absolutely awe-inspiring, monstrous, wonderful, and overwhelming—especially his magnificent pad patch when backing up Kabongo during her soulful rubato ballad. I stood for Zawinul’s entire set no further than ten feet away from him, right at the front of the stage on the floor, and in spite of the awful sound provided by the stage monitoring system—which wreaked havoc with the band all night—Zawinul’s choice of sounds was luscious, juicy, rich, and with a deep spiritual underpinning that only a transcendent master can provide. And yes, jazz and acoustic snobs, there is a lot more to synth programming than just pressing a button. Give it a try sometime; the possibilities are endless.

I was personally appalled by the choice of venue for this event. A musician of Zawinul’s status deserves the finest concert hall we can provide him, not a glorified beer-parlour like the Commodore, which is notorious for bad sound. The trademark bad sound was present this night, of course, and the worst of it was the musicians’ on-stage monitors. Running through a 40-channel Rane board (the electronic equivalent of a very luxurious, leather-lined, air-conditioned fully-optioned 1985 Hyundai Pony), the sound that I heard from the monitors (I was right beside them) was simply awful. It is a miracle that they could play anything hearing what they heard that night, and I personally do not blame them for not doing an encore with that Gawd-awful sound like they had to put up with all night. They should have been at the Centre Theatre, a much more suitable venue for this magnificent ensemble. I hope the powers that be understand this, and put them in a suitable venue with suitable sound equipment next time.

At 71 [Zawinul’s 71st birthday is tomorrow, July 7], Zawinul continues to be a profound and inspirational voice in modern music, and one which we can only hope will be with us for many years to come.

One more note relating to Zawinul’s swing through Canada last month: He was the recipient of the Montreal Jazz Festival’s Miles Davis Award, which honors “a great international jazz musician for the entire body of his or her work and for that musician’s influence in regenerating the jazz idiom.” Congrats, Joe.

The Zawinul Syndicate has embarked on its summer tour, starting with four festival performances in North America, and then it’s off to Europe for the month of July. Former Syndicate drummer Nathaniel Townsley is back for the North American performances, with Stéphane Galland set to take over in Europe. (Townsley will tour with Richard Bona this summer.) Galland will make at least the fourth drummer since January. Roger Biwandu was a last-minute sub for Paco Sery at the January concerts in Los Angeles and New York, and Marque Gilmore toured with Zawinul this past spring.

Galland is a highly sought after drummer in Belgium, and is a member of the bands Aka Moon and Greetings From Mercury. In reviewing Aka Moon’s album Aka Moon Guitars, Phil DiPietro of All About Jazz wrote of Galland: “The heavy hitting, polyrhythmic playing of Coleman’s Gene Lake and Gilmore’s Rodney Holmes comes to mind as a point of comparison to these ears, but Galland certainly has his own thing and his own touch happening, acutely technical skin work on par with the Bozzios and Chambers’ of the world. About three minutes into [‘The Last Call From Jaco’], Galland shows he’s as familiar with the intricacies of the highest levels of progressive rock drumming as with funk-fusion and odd-time styles, which he then revisits and magnifies upon in the succeeding ‘Scofield,’ and continues into the ensuing ‘From Influence to Innocence.’ Drum-heads looking for a new fave would do well to listen to this triumvirate of tunes before continuing their search.”

It appears that Galland’s commitments with Aka Moon and Greetings From Mercury precluded him from joining the Syndicate this side of the Atlantic. In fact, Galland has an interesting double-bill on July 25 at the Blue Note Festival in Belgium, performing back-to-back on the same evening with the Zawinul Syndicate and Greetings From Mercury.

Meanwhile, reports of the Syndicate’s recent performances have come my way. Melitta Ford emailed me directly, writing: “The Zawinul Syndicate played at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom as part of the Vancouver International Jazz festival. Opening act was Lapp-Electro with Daniel Lapp from Victoria. Both concerts were awesome – but as soon as Zawinul and band hit the stage, the entire atmosphere changed. The Commodore Ballroom was charged with energy. Zawinul played with Manolo Badrena (percussion), Sabine Kabongo (vocals), Amit Chatterjee (guitar), Linley Marthe (bass) and Nathaniel Townsley (drums). Sabine’s range was phenomenal – from tribal vocal sounds to (obviously highly trained and professional) gospel voice and more. It was obvious that the band members greatly respected (if not almost ‘feared’) Zawinul. Their eyes were always fixed at the ‘master’ who orchestrated every song. It was a great concert, outstanding musicianship…definitely an experience!”

Gregory J. Robb also reviewed the concert as part of his comprehensive coverage of the festival for All About Jazz. He described the scene at the Commodore: “Voice gives song to a frenetic, African-based groove that rhythmically underpins Joe Zawinul’s spaced keyboarding. The effect in The Commodore was astonishing – hundreds of fans packed on the dance floor to just watch and experience the culture of a band formed from around our world.”

Not everyone left the Commodore happy. A dissenting opinion was voiced by “Alex” on the rec.bluenote.music news group. Judging by his comments, he was expecting to hear Weather Report.

Two days later, the Syndicate played the Toronto Jazz Festival, and Toronto Star music critic Geoff Chapman reviewed the concert under the title, “World Beats Joyously Plundered.” Another article about Zawinul appeared in the Vancouver Sun, publicizing his performance in Vancouver.

The June issue of the UK magazine Sound on Sound has a fine article about Zawinul by Paul Tingen, author of the excellent book Miles Beyond. It is a noteworthy article in that it goes into considerable detail regarding Zawinul’s studio equipment and recording techniques—something you would expect from “Europe’s No. 1 Hi—Tech Recording Magazine.”

Good news for those of you that have had a tough time obtaining a copy of Anthony Zawinul’s 2000 documentary video, Two Years With the Zawinul Syndicate. VHS versions can now be obtained from Music by Mail. This film is a must for Zawinul fans, chronicling life on the road with lots of music.

Joe Zawinul’s most recent album, Faces and Places, won an Austrian Amadeus award (roughly the Austrian equivalent of a Grammy) in the Jazz/Blues/Folk album category. Nominees are the top five best-selling albums in each category. Winners are based on a vote of 400 members of the Austrian music industry. Congrats, Joe! (Thanks to Gerhard Hauer for the heads up on the award.)

Picture of Zawinul receiving his Amadeus Award

I’ve been remiss in not posting an update sooner, but things have been very busy here at work. Nevertheless, there have been some major shakeups in the Zawinul Syndicate, which is nearing the end of its spring tour of Europe. The changes are neatly described in an article/interview by Jempi Samyn on the JazzReview web site, from which I’m drawing much of this information. The article’s short, but a must read for Zawinul fans. Among other things, Zawinul briefly mentions his new band in Austria(!), and plans to record in Belgium at the end of April.

But back to the Syndicate. You may recall that back in January Zawinul was forced to bring in drummer Roger Biwandu on short notice to replace Paco Sery for concerts in California and New York. Then, with a spring tour of Europe planned, bassplayer Etienne M’Bappe evidently “forgot” that the Syndicate was booked for the spring, so Zawinul had to find a new bassplayer. That man was longtime Jean Luc Ponty fretless bassplayer Guy Nsangué Akwa. But Akwa had to bow out when he learned that the itinerary would include Russia and the Ukraine—countries for which he does not have a visa. So with less than two weeks until the start of the tour, Zawinul was once again in need of a bassplayer, and found Linley Marthe, who according to Zawinul is a better musician than M’Bappe. “Etienne is a master player, but only when he wants to and I can’t afford to play with musicians I can’t rely on.”

Meanwhile, presumably the drum chair was settled earlier in the year with New Yorker Marque Gilmore. I don’t know Gilmore’s music, but it sounds like an interesting choice. According to Gilmore’s web site, he is “a neo-legendary drummer and one of the founding members of NYC’s Black Rock Coalition, a musician and student of the metaphysical realms of sound. Marque has been at the forefront of Live Drum & Bass since 1993, his musicianship is critically acclaimed worldwide and maintains this position with his project “DRUM-FM: Interactive Tribalistic Sessions.” Launched as an “interactive jungle club” in New York City in 1994, DRUM-FM is to date, the first live Jungle/Drum & Bass ensemble specifically combining live instrumentation, MIDI-electronics and DJs in performance and studio production.” Some of the performance reviews on Gilmore’s web site sound fascinating, and have definitely peaked my interest in what this edition of the Zawinul Syndicate sounds like.

Meanwhile, some details on Zawinul’s summer plans are emerging, and he’ll be hitting some venues that haven’t had a Zawinul sighting in quite some time, if ever. I know that he is booked at the Montreal Jazz Festival in and Freihofer’s Jazz Festival in New York—both of which take place in June—as well as the Vienna Jazz Festival and Festival Africajarc in France in July. I believe he will also perform in Vancouver, British Columbia, but that has not been officially announced yet.