Josef Erich Zawinul ( '; 7 July 1932 – 11 September 2007) was an Austrian jazz and jazz fusion keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with Miles Davis and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, a musical genre that combined jazz with rock. He co-founded the groups Weather Report and The Zawinul Syndicate. He pioneered the use of electric piano and synthesizer, and was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" twenty-eight times by the readers of DownBeat magazine.
Biography
Early life and career
Zawinul grew up in Vienna, Austria. Accordion was his first instrument. When he was six or seven, he studied clarinet, violin, and piano at the Vienna Conservatory (Konservatorium Wien). During the 1950s, he was a staff pianist for Polydor. He worked as a jazz musician with Hans Koller, Friedrich Gulda, Karl Drewo, and Fatty George. In 1959, he moved to the U.S. to attend Berklee College of Music, but a week later he received a job offer from Maynard Ferguson, so he left school and went on tour. He spent most of the 1960s with Cannonball Adderley. During this time, he wrote "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy", "Walk Tall" and "Country Preacher", and played electric piano. As recounted in Zawinul's New York Times obituary, "It was uncommon then for a black bandleader like Adderley to hire a white sideman like Mr. Zawinul and touring could be problematic. 'I often had to sit in the bottom of the car when we drove through certain parts of the South,' Mr. Zawinul said in a 1997 interview with Anil Prasad of Innerviews magazine. But, he added, with characteristic bravado, 'Those kinds of things never fazed me; I wanted to play music with the best, and I could play on that level with the best.'"
At the end of the decade, Zawinul recorded with Miles Davis on In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, as Davis established the genre of jazz fusion by combining jazz with rock.
With The Zawinul Syndicate
thumb|right|300px|The Zawinul Syndicate, live in [[Freiburg im Breisgau|Freiburg, 28 March 2007]]
The Zawinul Syndicate was a jazz fusion band formed in 1988. It evolved out of Weather Report.
Their style could be described as a combination of unusual grooves, driving and swinging rhythms and many borrowings from different music cultures.
Zawinul himself stated that he gave the band its name due to a syndicate bearing more resemblance to a family than "just" a band.
After the death of Zawinul in 2007, several members of the Zawinul Syndicate decided to reform and perform Zawinul's music live under their shortened name the Syndicate.
Several major members of the Syndicate over the years include Scott Henderson, Bobby Thomas Jr, Linley Marthe, Paco Sery, Manolo Badrena, Nathaniel Townsley, Sabine Kabongo, Gary Poulson, Richard Bona, and Victor Bailey.
Stories of the Danube
Zawinul also wrote a symphony, called Stories of the Danube, which was commissioned by the Brucknerhaus, Linz. It was first performed as part of the Linzer Klangwolke (a large-scale open-air broadcast event), for the opening of the 1993 Bruckner Festival in Linz. In its seven movements, the symphony traces the course of the Danube from Donaueschingen through various countries ending at the Black Sea. It was recorded in 1995 by the Czech State Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno, conducted by Caspar Richter.
thumb|Joe Zawinul's grave in [[Vienna Central Cemetery, Vienna]]
Death
Zawinul became ill and was hospitalized in his native Vienna on 7 August 2007, after concluding a five-week European tour. He died a little over a month later from a rare form of skin cancer (Merkel cell carcinoma) on 11 September 2007. He was cremated at Feuerhalle Simmering and his ashes buried in Vienna Central Cemetery. His wife Maxine had died earlier the same year. They were survived by their sons Erich, Ivan, and Anthony.
|-
| 1998 –<br/>2000
| Mauthausen - Vom großen Sterben hören
| ESC
| 2000
| Accepted a request for memorial music from the Mauthausen concentration camp community. Wayne Shorter on 1 track.
|-
| 2000 <!--autumn--> –<br/>2002-03
| Faces & Places
| ESC
| 2002
| Partially live recorded in Sydney and Paris. Nominated to Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.