''75'' is a
live album by Austrian-American jazz musician
Joe Zawinul and his band the Zawinul Syndicate. It was recorded in 2007 at two performances in Switzerland and Hungary, among
bandleader Joe Zawinul's final performances. The album was produced by Joachim Becker and originally released in 2008 by
JVC Compact Discs, with the Zawinul Estate and Becker serving as
executive producers. It was later released by BHM Productions and
Heads Up International
Heads Up International is a jazz record label that was formed in Cleveland, Ohio. It was bought by the Concord Music Group in 2005.
History
The label got its name from a jazz group that Dave Love formed while attending North Texas State Universi ...
, the BHM release with the alternate title ''75th''. It peaked at number eighteen on ''
Billboard'' Top Jazz Albums chart and won the
2010 Grammy Award
The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pr ...
for
Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
The album received a generally positive critical reception.
Overview
With the exception of one track, ''75'' was recorded during the Zawinul Syndicate's 7 July 2007 appearance at a festival in
Lugano
Lugano (, , ; lmo, label=Ticinese dialect, Ticinese, Lugan ) is a city and municipality in Switzerland, part of the Lugano District in the canton of Ticino. It is the largest city of both Ticino and the Italian-speaking southern Switzerland. Luga ...
, Switzerland, which happened to be bandleader Joe Zawinul's seventy-fifth birthday.
The concert was a part of the Zawinul Syndicate's twentieth anniversary world tour. The remaining track, "In a Silent Way", was recorded from their 2 August 2007 show in
Veszprém
Veszprém (; german: Weißbrunn, sl, Belomost) is one of the oldest urban areas in Hungary, and a city with county rights. It lies approximately north of the Lake Balaton. It is the administrative center of the county (comitatus or 'megye') of ...
, Hungary. Zawinul was joined on stage by
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Dav ...
on
soprano saxophone for this track. This marked a reunion for Zawinul and Shorter, two original members of
Weather Report
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian virtuoso keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer and voca ...
, both of whom played on the original version of this song from
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...
's 1969
album of the same name.
Shortly after these performances, on 11 September 2007, Zawinul died of
Merkel cell carcinoma
Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare and aggressive skin cancer occurring in about 3 people per 1,000,000 members of the population. It is also known as cutaneous APUDoma, primary neuroendocrine carcinoma of the skin, primary small cell carcin ...
.
The Veszprém concert was Zawinul's penultimate performance.
Composition
''75'' opens with "Orient Express" from Zawinul's 1992
solo album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
''
My People''. Zawinul plays the
vocoder
A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.
The vocoder was ...
on this track.
The second track, "Madagascar", also features Zawinul on vocoder and is one of two tracks that originally appeared on
Weather Report
Weather Report was an American jazz fusion band active from 1970 to 1986. The band was founded in 1970 by Austrian virtuoso keyboardist Joe Zawinul, American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Czech bassist Miroslav Vitouš, American drummer and voca ...
's album ''
Night Passage''.
Another Weather Report piece, "Scarlet Woman", follows and features a bass solo by Linley Marthe.
"Zansa II" is a duet with
Paco Sery
Paco Sery (born 1 May 1956 in Côte d'Ivoire) is a world music and jazz fusion drummer. He has played with Joe Zawinul and Eddy Louiss. He also has his own band, releasing his first solo album, ''Voyages'', in 2000.
Discography
With Sixun ...
on
kalimba
Mbira ( ) are a family of musical instruments, traditional to the Shona people of Zimbabwe. They consist of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, played by holding the instrument in the hands and p ...
and Zawinul on
synthesizer and vocoder.
The first disc concludes with "Cafe Andalusia". Sabine Kabongo provides
scat vocals
In vocal jazz, scat singing is vocal improvisation with wordless vocables, nonsense syllables or without words at all. In scat singing, the singer improvises melodies and rhythms using the voice as an instrument rather than a speaking medium. ...
on this track.
A combination of two Weather Report pieces "Fast City" and "Two Lines" opens disc two and features more scat singing by Kabongo.
Next, "Clario" features vocals by Alegre Corrêa.
Another melding of Weather Report tunes, "Badia" and "Boogie Woogie Waltz", follows and features Corrêa on
Berimbau
The berimbau () is a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, originally from Africa, that is now commonly used in Brazil.
The berimbau would eventually be incorporated into the practice of the Afro-Brazilian martial art ''capoeir ...
and Kabongo on vocals.
The next track is a recording of Kabungo leading the audience in a chorus of "
Happy Birthday" directed at Zawinul.
"In a Silent Way", a duet between Shorter and Zawinul originally from
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...
's
album of the same name, follows. The album closed with "Hymn", which seemed to one reviewer "as though
awinulknew the end was near".
Critical reception
''75'' received a generally positive critical reception. Michael G. Nastos of
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
wrote that the album exemplified Zawinul's "personalized direction" before he died and that it "exudes all of the energy the group produced in concert".
''
JazzTimes
''JazzTimes'' is an American magazine devoted to jazz. Published 10 times a year, it was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1970 by Ira Sabin as the newsletter ''Radio Free Jazz'' to complement his record store.
Coverage
After a decade of growt ...
'' Bill Milkowski described Zawinul's keyboard playing as creating "dazzling, free-flowing lines with the right hand while deftly orchestrating dense chords and Ellingtonian shout choruses with the left hand".
All About Jazz
''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...
's Woodrow Wilkins called the album a "musical adventure" and Zawinul's performance "a testament to his talent and dedication in sharing his gift".
John Kelman, managing editor for All About Jazz, wrote that based on his performance Zawinul gave "no indicators that he was ill, let alone approaching death". He closed his review by calling ''75'' a "fitting finale to the career of an artist whose creativity, forward thinking and extensive discography mean that he may be gone, but he'll never be forgotten."
In the ''
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review'', Bob Karlovitis called the release "a great statement about
awinul'screativity". He described the album's opening piece, "Orient Express" as "almost tiring in its energy".
The
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
's Jon Lusk did not share the high opinions of other critics. He was "not mad about" vocalists
and Sabine Kabongo but found Alegre Corrêa "agreeable enough". He liked "In a Silent Way", calling it "beautifully serene" but wished there were other performances with similar "reflective moments".
'' by John Bungey was more positive. He noted that it was not a "generally sad affair, hard-to-take document" as are most final recordings of great artists, but instead "a compelling last testament of a mighty group and a fine human being".
'' was mixed; he wrote that the "tempos border on the frantic, phrases are spat, the will to trade licks is never less than testosteronal" but quipped that for "every sublime passage there's a butch one".
'' contrasted the release to Zawinul's 2005 live album ''Vienna Nights''. One difference he emphasized was "the typhoon drumming of Paco Sery and a battalion of percussionists
gives Zawinul the option of letting long stretches of the music simply groove". He also noted that there was no comparable track with the duet with Shorter on ''Vienna Nights''.
, vocals
* Jorge Bezerra – percussion, vocals
* Sabine Kabongo – percussion, vocals
*
Credits adapted from Allmusic and album liner notes.
'' Top Jazz Albums chart.
.
.