Joe Zawinul
FameRank: 4

"Josef Erich "Joe" Zawinul" was an Austrians/Austrian jazz keyboard instrument/keyboardist and composer.

First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative Music genre/musical genre that combined jazz with elements of Rock music/rock and world music. Later, Zawinul co-founded the groups Weather Report and the world fusion music-oriented Zawinul Syndicate. Additionally, he made pioneering use of electric piano and synthesizers. Zawinul was named "Best Electric Keyboardist" 28 times by the readers of Down Beat magazine.

More Joe Zawinul on Wikipedia.

But I end up with these bands who have players from literally all over the world.

[At a spry 72 with five decades of innovative performing now behind him, does Zawinul know where jazz itself is heading?] I have no idea, ... but as a good improviser, I know where it is not: the past.

It was great music, ... but it has passed. It is wonderful to recall it, fun to hear it, but that is not for me: I get too restless, too bored; I need something new.

Boxing is such a great sport and so much like making jazz music, ... There is the footwork, the jab, the constant setting up and reacting to your opponent.

Promoter Bill Graham brought us to Fillmore to back up the Who.

One day I heard a pianist play `Honeysuckle Rose,' ... and I was hooked. I said, `What is that?' He said, `jazz,' which was a word I had never heard, and I asked him to spell it for me. My life was changed after that.