Jazz Currents

The mailing list posting on from the Jazz Programmer’s Network on August 5th couldn’t have been more ominous. It simply said Joe Zawinul had been hospitalized in Vienna with an undisclosed illness. It was the “undisclosed illness” part that was the most troubling. That phrase is not meant to instill hope; it’s meant to tell you to prepare for the worst. Personally, I wasn’t prepared for the worst. I first saw Zawinul’s name on the liner notes for Cannonball Adderley’s album with Nancy Wilson in the late 60’s. He really got my attention with the hit he penned for Adderley, “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”. I shared the same question with many jazz fans. Who was this strange little man from Austria whose self-admitted dream as a teenager was “to come to America and music with Black musicians”? Zawinul realized that dream in 1958, went on to become one of the greatest keyboard players in the history of the music. Maynard Ferguson hired Zawinul right out of the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He w...