CD1
1. Introduction To Orient Express
2. Orient Express
3. Madagascar
4. Scarlet Woman
5. Zansa II
6. Café Andalusia
CD2
1. Fast City/Two Lines
2. Clario
3. Badia/Boogie Woogie Waltz
4. Happy Birthday
5. In A Silent Way
6. Hymn
Joe Zawinul - Keyboards, vocoder
Sabine Kabongo - Vocals, percussion
Alegre Correa - Guitar, vocals, berimbau
Linley Marthe - Bass
Paco Sery - Drums, kalimba, vocals
Jorge Bezerra, Aziz Sahmaoui - Percussion, vocals
Wayne Shorter - Soprano sax (track II/5)
This double CD is both a celebration and a requiem. It was Joe Zawinul's
last album, recorded on his 75th birthday. Most of it comes from a concert
at the Estival Jazz Lugano in Switzerland in July 2007, but Joe died
two months later. I have admired much of Zawinul's work, especially
with Cannonball Adderley's group and (most famously) with Weather Report,
as well as such albums as 1971's Zawinul. I would like to say that this
last album marks a fitting end to Zawinul's prolific career but, unfortunately,
it is not as good as I had hoped.
Joe's group the Zawinul Syndicate has been going for 20 years and I
have enjoyed some of its previous recordings but this album sounds,
frankly, rather uncoordinated. Superficially the album might be compared
with Weather Report, as it has strong keyboards and percussion underpinned
by electric bass (probably the fretless variety). Yet the group contains
several vocalists and percussionists, who tend to swamp most of what
is going on. And, as this is a multi-ethinic group (from Mauritius to
Rio via Marrakesh and the Congo), the vocals are sung in a variety of
languages which will be incomprehensible to many listeners - and the
album sleeve contains no helpful explanatory notes. Voices as well as
guitar shriek painfully near the start of Badia.
The result is a dense morass of sound which, at times, seems more like
heavy metal than jazz. Even though Zawinul's keyboards are the main
solo voice, they sometimes have difficulty emerging from the welter.
Joe's solos tend to be fragmentary (perhaps because of the illness he
was already enduring) and there aren't many of the memorable melodies
that one might expect from the composer of Birdland and Mercy, Mercy,
Mercy.
Fast City/Two Lines gives the guitarist and bassist a chance to play
virtuosic solos, although they are almost submerged beneath the busy
percussion. Zansa II is a blessedly restrained track (for the most part)
which allows Paco Sery to display his brilliance on the kalimba or thumb
piano. Another quietish number is In a Silent Way, recorded in Hungary
in August 2007 as a duet between Joe Zawinul and his erstwhile Weather
Report colleague, Wayne Shorter. It is a thoughtful, touching performance,
although melodic content is in short supply.
Elsewhere, the noisy ambience may be the fault of an echoey venue or
too resonant a recording but, whatever the cause, the noise is overpowering
for most of this double CD and it conceals the undoubted musicianship
which is in there somewhere. I know they say "De mortuis nil nisi
bonum" but honesty compels me to admit that there are many better
Zawinul albums than this.
Tony Augarde
CD Reviews
Birdjam
BHM 4002-2
