Search - Joe Zawinul :: Zawinul

Rich and Unique

Mark A. Elliott | Richmond, VA United States | 05/23/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The unique instrumentation on Joe Zawinul's first solo recording combines with some of his most powerful compositions to make for a particularly rich listening experience. A sense of hushed beauty pervades, with tone colors washing over subtle and complex subrhythms. Liking watching water move in a pool, this album rewards contemplation without clamoring for attention. Musicians:- Joe Zawinul, Herbie Hancock (keyboards), George Davis, Hubert Laws (flutes), Woody Shaw, Jimmy Owens (trumpets), Earl Turbinton, Wayne Shorter (soprano saxes), Miroslav Vitous, Walter Booker (basses), Joe Chambers, Billy Hart, David Lee, Jack DeJohnette (percussion)"

Good, Interesting, but not focused. Maybe 3.5?

R G-S | Los Angeles, CA United States | 11/11/2004

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Joe Zawinul's self-titled album is the weakest of the three "Pre-Weather Report Weather Report" albums, by the founding members, but only because the competition, (Vitous' "Infinite Search" (aka "Mountain in the Clouds") and Shorter's "Odyssey of Iska" )is so brilliant as to leave almost anything else in shadow.



On the two extended pieces, "Double Image" and "Dr. Honoris", (the latter, which became an early WR signature piece, making its debut on record) Zawinul and Hancock explore the sonic extremes of the Rhodes Piano-echoplex-ring modulator combo, which started to become the identifying sound color in fusion at this point; three or four years later, they'd both be behind banks of synths. The wind players take good atmospheric solos; Woody Shaw's work on "Dr." is particularly good. The rhythm section cooks. But just when these tunes start to nail themselves down and WORk, they "slip out of focus" again and again.



The short pieces, however, Zawinul's programatic "soundscape" experiments, didn't work for me when this came out, and still don't work for me. The "Silent Way" reading on Miles' album always beat this version, and "Last Journey" and "New York" are interesting, but failed.



So, it belongs in a reasonably conmplete collection of fusion, but not in the first ten."