My friends Thomas Kober of Austria and Marco at the Zawinul Italian Fan Site brought to my attention the new Jaco Pastorius family web site built and maintained by Jaco’s twin sons, Julius and Felix. The site is a must-see for Jaco fans, and we wish them the best of luck. According to their FAQ, the new Jaco Pastorius web site at www.jacopastorius.com will officially come online in conjunction with the long awaited release of the Bob Bobbing Portrait of Jaco anthology of Jaco’s pre-Weather Report years. This will be significant Pastorius release, some details of which were described a few years ago in a Bass Player magazine article by Bill Milkowski.

Zawinul Syndicate percussionist Manolo Badrena’s 1979 album, Manolo, is being rereleased on CD in Japan next month. Of special note is an appearance by Jaco Pastorius on one track. Other performers include Carlos Rios on guitar, Hugo Fattoruso on keyboards (anybody remember the 1970s fusion band Opa?), and Abraham Laboriel on bass. Those of us in the states can order it from Audiophile Imports.

Audiophile Imports Manolo Page

This is probably old news to Jacophiles, but a remastered version of Jaco Pastorius’ eponymous debut album is scheduled for release this summer by Columbia/Legacy Recordings. It will include two previously unreleased tracks: an alternate take of “Cha-Cha,” and “6/4 Jam,” with Jaco, Herbie Hancock, Lenny White, and Don Alias. (This information comes from Tom Stroud’s Jaco Pastorius web site.)

The Los Angeles Times ran a brief review by Don Heckman of the Syndicate’s May 5 performance at UCLA. Heckman previously reviewed the World Tour CD for the Times, calling it “stunning,” with brilliantly innovative performances that demand repeated hearing. Unfortunately, he didn’t like the concert as much, complaining that there was “a sameness to much of the music.” He concluded his review with, “Despite occasional high points, it was not one of the Zawinul Syndicate’s most impressive presentations. In past performances, Zawinul has offered more contrasting material, enriching his synthesizer sounds with loops of world music and radio sounds. This time out, repetition too often took precedence over inspiration.”

Heckman also indicated that the concert was sparsely attended, perhaps because that same evening the Los Angeles Lakers were playing the fifth and deciding game of the series with the Sacramento Kings.

The Zawinul Syndicate performed two concerts in San Francisco this past weekend, one of them with the Richard Bona Group. Your intrepid Zawinul Online reporters were there, and filed a review.

Zawinul Syndicate/Richard Bona Concert Reviews

In conjunction with the Zawinul Syndicate’s performances in California this weekend, the San Jose Mercury-News, San Francisco Examiner, and LA Weekly all published feature articles today about Zawinul. These articles will likely be available for free viewing for 7 to 14 days, after which you will have to pay to retrieve them from the newspapers’ archives. In the Mercury-News article, Zawinul talks about how the Syndicate’s new drummer”Nathaniel Townsley”came to his attention, and the Examiner article recalls Weather Report’s first performance in San Francisco.

San Jose Mercury-News Article
San Francisco Examiner Article
LA Weekly Article

According to the International Music Network, the Zawinul Syndicate will play several concerts in Central and South America following its Los Angeles and San Francisco gigs this weekend. The Zawinul Online Tour Dates page has been updated accordingly.

Meanwhile, the Syndicate performed its first concerts with its revamped line-up this past weekend at the Denton Jazz Festival and the New Orleans Jazz Festival. The line-up consisted of Zawinul, Manolo Badrena on percussion, Nathaniel Townsley on drums, Amit Chatterjee on guitar, and Richard Bona on bass. Starting with the California gigs the first weekend in May, Victor Bailey will re-assume the bass chair now that his own European tour has concluded.

Peter Basler, one of Zawinul’s European booking agents, recently posted details of the Syndicate’s European tour on the Joe Zawinul Fans Mailing List. You can find the dates on the Tour Dates page.

Two Zawinul CDs will be released shortly. A new album, currently scheduled for April release only in Europe, is inspired by the plight of prisoners at the Mauthausen Concentration Camp during World War II. Produced in conjunction with Frank Hoffman, whose spoken words are heard on the World Tour album, the disc stems from a 1998 Austrian-government sponsored event commemorating the inhumanity of the camp, in which Hoffman read letters of inmates, and Zawinul unveiled a composition which “[transformed] the impressions of witnesses to the events at Mauthausen.” (Read the press release here.)

Also scheduled for release at the end of March is a new Zawinul compilation disc, part of WEA’s Les Incontournables series. A description of the disc can found at the Tower Records web site. I believe this is also a European release.

And finally, a poster on the rec.music.bluenote newsgroup said he recently noticed the Legacy Recordings website listed the following item for April 18 release: Weather Report”Live and Unreleased. Legacy has subsequently removed the listing. Hmmm.

Friends in New York confirm that Nathaniel Townsley has indeed taken over the Zawinul Syndicate drum chair”most recently occupied by Karim Ziad”and has been rehearsing with the band in preparation for its upcoming concert dates. Townsley is well-known around the New York music scene, and has performed with Special FX, Intro, Savian Glover, Chico De Barge, and Kelly Price, to name a few. According to a friend, Townsley “is a phenomenal drummer! He has great dexterity, total independence, and chops for days. I have seen him play with some of New York’s best musicians and they have all just sat there in disbelief at one point or another.”

All Music Guide Nathaniel Townsley Discography