• 01. From Venice to Vienna 04:48
Performed by The Zawinul Syndicate
Music by Joe Zawinul
Published by Mulatto Music
• 02. King Hip 16:30
Performed by The Zawinul Syndicate
Music by Joe Zawinul
Published by Mulatto Music
• 03. Cajun 08:55
Performed by The Zawinul Syndicate
Music by Joe Zawinul
Published by Mulatto Music
• 04. Little Rootie Tootie 05:22
Performed by The Zawinul Syndicate
Music by Thelonious Monk
Published by Sphere Music

Back to Top

• Joe Zawinul - keyboards
• Scott Henderson - guitar
• Gerald Veasley - bass
• Lynne Fiddmont - voice & percussion
• Cornell Rochester - drums

Printer-friendly

After Zawinul and Shorter brought Weather Report to a close in 1985, Joe concentrated on some oft-delayed personal projects, including his 1986 synthesizer tour de force, Dialects, and a series of concerts with the great classical pianist Friedrich Gulda. But it wasn't long before he was ready to put together a new band. Joe called it the Zawinul Syndicate because "when you are in the Syndicate, you are not just in a band, you are in a family." The Syndicate would evolve to include musicians from around the world, creating a musical synthesis unlike anything else. "I wanted to play my music without a saxophone player," Joe says of his original concept for the Syndicate. "First, no one could replace Wayne Shorter. But also, by playing the melodies alone I could change them at any time. I could make the ensembles different every night. And that's what I really liked about that concept. I also wanted to have a guitar to take over some of those rhythm lines I played in Weather Report. And I wanted to be more groove-oriented even than Weather Report was, which had a phenomenal groove." The Syndicate's first album, 1988's The Immigrants, featured Abraham Laboriel (bass), Cornell Rochester (drums), and Scott Henderson (guitar). Laboriel was a well-known session player with dozens of albums to his credit. Rochester came to Joe's attention through bass player Jamaaladeen Tacuma. "I first heard Cornell with Jamaaladeen, and then later in Holland with Odeon Pope, and I thought he was fantastic," Zawinul says. Henderson - a gifted soloist with a style that combines elements of rock, blues and jazz - had been a member of Chick Corea's Elektric Band. "I liked Scott Henderson a lot," Joe recalls. "I heard him in a trio and he played his ass off. He could play lines and he had a great tone. As a soloist, he was the best guitarist we had." With Laboriel preferring session work to touring, Zawinul needed a special musician to supply the band's bottom end, and he found him in Gerald Veasley, a bass player from Philadelphia who would anchor the Syndicate rhythm section for years to come. "Cornell recommended Gerald," Joe remembers, "and Scott went to hear him with Grover Washington, Jr., and really liked him. So we brought him to the house right after he played with Grover at the Hollywood Bowl. And man, within two tunes we knew this was the guy. He could lay down a groove that hurt and he had a great personality. He had everything." Rounding out the original Syndicate were percussionist Muyungo Jackson, who later joined Miles Davis' band, and Lynne Fiddmont, a versatile performer who could sing, dance, play keyboards and percussion, and subsequently went on to a successful solo career. The band hit the road, playing its first concert in New Jersey. "It was funny," Zawinul says of that first night, "because the power fluctuated so much that the keyboards went in and out of tune. It was really strange. It was the weirdest concert. It was in one of those funny night clubs, hardly any people there." From that inauspicious beginning, the Zawinul Syndicate was off and running.
-Zawinulonline.org

Printer-Friendly pages
Fact Sheet
CD Insert (Inside)
CD Insert (Outside)
(When printing the CD Inserts, configure your Page Setup to print sideways 100%.)

Cover Art JPEG

Keyboardist Joe Zawinul's Syndicate grooves on live discovery

Austrian-American keyboardist Joe Zawinul gave the electric keyboards artistic value. He made them sound 'human'. The interesting part is how he's able to imitate the human voice and primitive instruments with such credibility and personal touch. It may be because he has played many acoustic... Full Story