It’s when you realize that his synthesizers are actually speaking to you in a nearly-intelligible language that you become a true Zawinul devotee. With his ear guiding his astonishing touch, his deft control of envelopes and filters, and his ability to create exquisite layers and blends instantly, Joe’s sound is at once instantly recognizable and constantly evolving. Very few artists have committed themselves so deeply and for so many years to creating their own sonic world with synths; Joe’s logged more time on these beasts than just about anyone. In many ways, very few have taken synthesizers as seriously as he has.
“I think the synthesizer is an equalizer,” he told us back in 1977. “It’s going to show more than any other instrument were a musician is at. It’ll show what’s in you; whatever is in you will be revealed. It’ll show your scope as a musician.” In his case, synths are still revealing new things about him, and vice versa.
Joe is quick to point out that his approach to synth programming is more intuitive than studied, though he can discuss the differences between an ARP filter and an Oberheim filter as much as you want. “All the sounds I program myself,” he said recently. “I don’t know much about electronics, although I do know what the knobs are doing. My sounds are very special. But there’s a certain way of playing those sounds. If they’re not played the same way, they won’t sound correct. A synthesizer is not a piano, you know? Sorry to say, still too many keyboard players look at it as though it were a piano, and translating things they’d ordinarily play on a piano. And it does not work. In other words, on a synth, each sound you have is another instrument. It’s the difference between, let’s say, the trumpet and the guitar. It’s a big difference, and unless you play it differently, with a different attack, it’s gonna sound awkward.
“The synthesizer is a very difficult instrument to play, because you have to practice each sound, and get each attack so you get the right feeling of the particular sound. Too many players still sound awkward today playing this music, and that gives the synthesizer somewhat of a bad name. The instrument itself is a wonderful thing. Like everything, it’s a tool; but this is the master tool of all the instruments.”
One reason Joe’s ear and touch are sensitized to the possibilities inherent in synths is that he spent his early professional years playing not only piano, but also violin, accordion, clarinet, trumpet, and mallet percussion, such as vibes and marimba. He takes on the personality of any given sound he’s playing on a synth, feeling a bow drawing across a string, the buzz of the lips in a mouthpiece, or the bending of a reed under pressure. And perhaps most significantly, on a synth or on a vocoder, he can become a vocalist.
“With the vocoder, I can sing!” he says. “I like that quality. I could never be a singer, even though I have perfect pitch. That doesn’t mean anything, man. The vocoder is something that allows me to really express myself. And it’s fun to do.
“People who can sing have another concept of playing. They feel melodies. So it’s very important to me that the guys in my band have not necessarily a voice but a concept of singing.”
Another significant human element to Joe’s synth technique is the emotional content of his songs. “All my songs are stories,” he says. “I don’t have that many tunes in the book at any giving time with the Zawinul Syndicate. But in my stash at home, I have several thousand. I wrote 700 tunes in the past two or three years. Now with the computer, it’s so much easier. In the old days I would improvise my composition, on my synths, playing all the parts. I would tape the improvisation, then transcribe it for the band afterward. But now I just play it, I don’t need to write it down. I use Sibelius, and I can print it out; 90 per cent of the work is done. I record into Pro Tools simultaneously.
“Every sound gives me another thought. I get a sound on a synth, and that becomes a tune, because that very sound makes me think that particular way.” For more on Joe’s current synths, see page 28.
Syndication
For the past 20 years, Joe’s main performing and recording vehicle has been the Zawinul Syndicate, an ever-evolving association of extraordinarily hot musicians from nearly every corner of the world. The lineup we witnessed at a recent performance at the San Francisco Jazz Festival includes bassist Linley Marthe from Mali, percussionist and vocalist Aziz Samaoui from Morocco, guitarist and vocalist Clovis Nunes Correa from Brazil, and percussionist and vocalist Jorge Bezerra from Brazil. All of them play with incredible energy and fire, and none of them take their eyes off of Joe for more than a few seconds during the entire show. Where does Joe find these amazing cats, and how does he know he’s found the right ones? How does he turn talented sidemen into a cohesive human instrument that follows his every move?
“They find me, it’s much easier,” says Joe. “I’m not a listener to music, I’m not so aware of who is who and what’s being done by these people. But I have people who are consistently out there and hearing people. I get back information from people whose judgment I trust. And I just try guys out. Usually these are people who grew up with Weather Report and they know my music pretty good, you know?
“People always try to give me tapes, but I don’t even take ’em. Because I don’t want to be taking something and then not listen to it. I just tell ’em that from the beginning. I’m listening to my own music, not anybody else’s. It doesn’t have anything to do with any disrespect. I’ve just gotta keep my head clear.
“I don’t really know what I’m listening for, but if it’s there it’s there, if not, then we cannot do it. The guys who come into my band are very well prepared, I tell you. And once they’ve been in, they’re not the same. Linley has a great potential. And he’s three and a half years in the band, so he’s a different kind of guy now. There’s a lot to pickup, and he’s still learning, and we’re communicating. That’s the main thing.”
The music of the Zawinul Syndicate involves a lot of vocal performance on behalf of everyone in the band, including Joe. Much more so than even Weather Report, which, for a band of instrumentalists, had a lot of singing going on. How important is it that a Syndicate member has a strong singing voice?
“This is not something that has to be there. But I like it when it is there. It’s very important to me that they have not necessarily a voice but a concept of singing. It’s always been like that with the Syndicate.
“I don’t discuss the text of what they sing, and not the notes. I discuss with them what to sing, what I need in certain pieces. I tell them the stories. All my songs are stories. So I’ll tell Aziz the story of ‘Badia,’ she was an old girlfriend of mine, an Egyptian nightclub dancer. So I just tell him the stories, and then give him ideas of what this person was like, or what this place was like. I don’t talk about the meaning of the words he sings. And with this, Aziz is really coming into his own, man.
“For instance, the very first song we played, after the intro, it’s called ‘Search.’ We’re searching our whole life for the things we need. And then we return home to find it. Then the next is ‘Orient Express,’ when Agatha Christie found her character of Poirot, she was in Syria at a train station. Her husband was an archaeologist, and they lived in Syria. While she was standing on the platform, the idea came in to her head. So I tell Aziz these kind of stories, and then he can make up his own little thing. In ‘Blue Sound Note Three,’ it’s a story about one special note in that song, it was a blue sound, not a black sound. It’s the ballad we play where Jorge at the end kind of preaches in his tribal language. It’s all storytelling.
“What I get from these guys in the Syndicate, I couldn’t have done with Weather Report. It’s another world. It’s another kind of music. I’m not even sure if Wayne [Shorter] would even fit in there, and to me, he’s the greatest. And when you listen to a Syndicate album, you don’t miss anything. Number one, it’s based on singing, and purposefully so. And on dance. Duke Ellington speaks the foreword at the beginning of many of our shows, and it’s also on the My People CD. He says, ‘who are my people? My people are the people.” We are based on having fun in life. We work hard, but have fun in life. We don’t let the hard work be any kind of negative thing. It’s just a wonderful positive thing that you have the opportunity to work regardless of the work one does. People like to dance, to eat, to have fun, and go on and have children and raise ’em well. And don’t step on nobody and don’t let nobody step on them. And everything is documented by singing, in the Syndicate.”
The Syndicate doesn’t present Joe with his only opportunities for performing and recording. His recent release with the WDR Big Band, Brown Street, reunited Joe with Weather Report and Syndicate alums Alex Acuna, Victor Bailey, and Nathaniel Townsley. “The WDR big band, they’ve been together for 25 years, they’re very experienced,” says Joe. “Vince Mendoza orchestrated my original arrangements from the Weather Report days. I play my whole rig, so it doesn’t sound like an ordinary big band record. I’m mixing in there with the sound and playing melodies on top, and they’re with me. It’s quite impressive. I was conducting the band from the keyboards, cuing them like I do with my own band. So it was much more like a jam, an organized jam with a small band. We recorded it live at my Birdland club in Vienna.”
The 20th anniversary of the Zawinul Syndicate is coming right up, and to celebrate, Joe’s releasing a box set of live recordings. “Ivan, my son, is doing it,” says Joe. “Next year we’ll come out with a live box set that he recorded off the board tapes. It’s phenomenal, a three-CD set of the last 20 years of the Syndicate.”
It may be 20 years old, but the Syndicate is going strong. And Joe’s incredible enthusiasm for the band has not diminished one bit in all that time; he seems more excited about the current lineup than about any band he’s ever had. “We got great reviews in New York,” he gushes. “We got standing ovations at Lincoln Center for two nights. And you know, we’re not trying to play jazz, we’re just playing music. We’re just trying to have fun.”