Pullin’ ‘Tubes: In Honor of Joe Zawinul

Former Miles Davis collaborator and Weather Report co-founder Joe Zawinul died earlier today at the age of 75. Zawinul isn’t exactly the most well-known figure in jazz history, but his contributions are nonetheless noteworthy.

The classically trained Austrian helped develop jazz fusion as few before him did, and his compositions are still alive and well in many big bands and marching bands. Mostly, though, I love the quote from Miles Davis in a biography about Zawinul, that he had a black wife and “beige” kids. Stay classy, Miles.

Wayne Shorter and Zawinul made up the nucleus of Weather Report, and along with Jaco Pastorius and Peter Erskine (among many others), the fusion group churned some impressive hits while continuing to innovate and re-invent. This clip below’s from the Stadthalle Offenbach Concert in 1978, and we should all marvel at this incredible performance of the Zawinul-penned Birdland, which is drastically different from the album version. Also, marvel at how many fucking keyboards this dude had in his setup — dang, try being the roadie for these guys.

[youtube]pqashW66D7o[/youtube]