Man of the people
by Anil Prasad
Copyright © 1997 Anil Prasad. All rights reserved.
Technology pundits tell us we live in a wired world that enables people to bridge continents with the click of a mouse or remote control. But some critics believe the world is experiencing unprecedented levels of fragmentation across social, cultural and political lines. Whether the context is mass-mediated reality, Internet immersion or pre-millenium tension, an argument can be made either way. Are the tribes of the world pulling further apart or coming closer together?
On this lazy summer morning at the Lake Merritt Hotel in Oakland, California, jazz legend Joe Zawinul advocates the latter answer while enjoying a steaming cup of Earl Grey tea. The keyboardist and composer is dressed as everyman, decked out in a plaid shirt, navy blue pants and ball cap. His large build, thick salt-and-pepper moustache and gritty, Slavic accent add an air of authority to his banter. He speaks with energy and enthusiasm when discussing his latest studio album My People. The upbeat and spirited disc uses world music, jazz and rock elements to relay his principal mantra of "one world, one people."
Zawinul, 65, is world-renowned for making music that bridges cultures and influences. During the '70s and '80s, the three-time Grammy winner co-led Weather Report with saxophonist Wayne Shorter. The pioneering fusion band is responsible for several groundbreaking albums including 1976's Black Market and 1977's Heavy Weather. The latter release sold over 500,000 copies worldwide—an astonishing figure in jazz circles. Prior to Weather Report, Zawinul worked with key names such as Dinah Washington, Ben Webster and Cannonball Adderley. As part of Adderley's group, Zawinul wrote "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy" which hit number 11 on the Billboard pop charts in 1967. But it was his collaborations with Miles Davis on the trumpet master's 1969 releases In A Silent Way and Bitches Brew that first brought him real notoriety and visibility. Bitches Brew is widely acknowledged as one of the first albums to merge jazz and rock influences. It helped spark the fusion movement that continues to this day.
"Joe has been an integral part of the development of jazz as it moved away from an acoustic, straight-ahead art form. If you took him away from the history of the music, it would be very different. His importance just cannot be exaggerated," said bassist Gerald Veasley, who played with Zawinul between 1988 and 1992 and now has a successful solo career. "He's also been responsible for bringing together some of the best players around. His bands have featured greats including Jaco Pastorius, Omar Hakim and Victor Bailey. As well, Joe's been very important in the use of synthesizers in all forms of music. He's one of the few players who has a real voice on the synthesizer. When he plays, you say 'A-ha! That's Joe Zawinul!' You don't say 'A-ha! That's a Korg M-1 keyboard!' With Joe, you hear the artistry behind the technology. Most of his music has a more organic feel than that of his colleagues. It features very complex arrangements and when you listen to it, it sounds like the music is unfolding before your eyes—it feels like it's being created in the moment."
Zawinul's reputation for creating trailblazing music is what attracted the stellar cast of world musicians—32 in all—who appear on My People. Just a few of the luminaries accompanying Zawinul include vocalists Salif Keita (Mali), Burhan Ocal (Turkey) and Thania Sanchez (Venezuela), and percussionists Alex Acuña (Peru) and Trilok Gurtu (India). The album finds them combining forces with the nucleus of The Zawinul Syndicate, the post-Weather Report band he's led since 1988. During the recording of My People, the group was comprised of bassist Matthew Garrison (USA), drummer Paco Sery Jr. (Ivory Coast), guitarist Gary Poulson (USA) and percussionist Arto Tuncboyaciyan (Anatolia).
Being part of the Zawinul Syndicate is no easy gig. A live album drawing largely from My People due out later this year is another testament to that fact. It further showcases the exceptional versatility, drive and capacity for innovation and improvisation a Zawinul sideman needs in order to make the cut.
"It's a demanding kind of music. It calls for musicians who have proficiency in way more than one idiom of music," explained guitarist Scott Henderson, co-leader of the acclaimed fusion outfit Tribal Tech and a Zawinul Syndicate member from 1988 to 1990. "Joe wants guys in his band that know how to play jazz, how to be funky and have a great groove. He doesn't want run-of-the-mill jazz musicians. Joe's music is way broader than traditional bebop music—it's sonic music that goes beyond notes."
Some arrangers might find it a challenge to build something new from the many aural traditions My People draws from, but for Zawinul, it's old hat. In fact, he says his body of work provided the building blocks responsible for creating hip-hop and world music. It's a heady claim indeed, but Veasley postulates that it may be motivated by factors less obvious than historical accuracy.
"Joe is a super-confident guy. It doesn't even matter if it's true or not, but just to have the balls to say it is very interesting," he said. "The music business is so fraught with insecurity that you have to have confidence or you're finished from the beginning. The industry is designed to challenge your security. There's always someone ready to bring you down a peg or two and make you feel less than what you are. Saying things like that is a kind of psychic survival tactic."
Along with My People, 1996 saw the release of Zawinul's first orchestral work titled Stories of the Danube. The disc explores the Austrian-born composer's Hungarian, Czech and Sinti roots. The album was crafted as an aural journey through the drama and trauma associated with the Danube River and the countries it streams through. It also serves as a poignant reflection on the struggles Zawinul faced during a childhood shadowed by World War II. Elements Stories of the Danube employs to paint its sonic portrait include the Czech State Philharmonic Orchestra, Gypsy singers, synthesizers, worldbeat percussionists and World War II broadcast alerts.
My People and Stories of the Danube add new layers to a recorded legacy that steadfastly refuses to fit into any mould. It was Zawinul's unquenchable thirst to continue creating music without borders that motivated him to leave the Sony Music label after a three-decade association. He's now working with the indie label Escapade in order to ensure his artistic freedom remains intact and unchallenged.
"One thing I really respect about Joe is that he's never done any crap, commercial records just to make money," said Henderson. "Joe does what he wants to do. He doesn't think about trying to get more accepted by bigger audiences. He just plays his music and doesn't compromise it for anything."
Veasley shares that perception, but notes that Zawinul's fierce devotion to his work is tempered by a more jovial and playful side too—one revealed during the course of this interview.
"My perception was that Joe is the ultimate serious musician," said Veasley. "If you look at the Weather Report album covers, he's always standing there scowling at the camera. He lets you know by his demeanor that 'I'm a serious musician, composer and man.' And that's true, but it's a paradox because he's one of the funniest people I've ever worked with. He's very lighthearted, enjoys sports, card games and a good drink of Slivovitz. He has a very youthful spirit while also being a sagacious, wise old man."
Describe the message you wrote My People to convey.
It’s a beautiful record. I like it a lot—it’s one of my favorites. It says a lot of the things I want to say. It’s more philosophy than music. There’s a real communication within all of us and so many people deny their own thing. I always believe in the fact that the world is one thing—even when I was a kid we were in war and in spite of what happened, I always believed in the humanity of people of the world. I’m talking about all kinds of people. I grew up with that idea of many tribes. I believe that all people are great in every nation. I’ve been all over the world and I consider all of these people to be my people.
What motivated you to make the statement now?
I heard an interview on CBC Radio in Canada with Duke Ellington and he talked about the idea of "my people" and I thought he made the same statement I've been making throughout my entire life. Duke is really one of my favorites. He made a great impact on my life. So, I said to myself, "that's what I want to express" and I decided one day to make a record about that. Therefore, I have many people from many tribes singing on the record. My favorite instrument is singing when it’s done right, but it can be the absolute worst when it’s not. In every culture, there are a handful of really outstanding storytellers. That’s what it is all about—music is nothing else. Music is not a bunch of notes and chords. Music is storytelling.
My People is an incredibly intricate record. Was it a challenge to make its myriad of world music influences fit together?
No, no. I've been doing this all my life man. I played the accordion when I was a kid and I played the same way. There's no big difference—none of this stuff, but people find out so late. You know hip-hop? What is hip-hop? I invented the beat of hip-hop! In 1970, I invented it and no drummer could play it and I did this album with Weather Report called Sweetnighter that has a track called "125th Street Congress." It has the original hip-hop beat and I have about 50 recordings of rap and hip-hop groups using a sample of the original song. Many other things I did in the '60s—I'm not complaining about it, but since we're talking about it, I might as well tell you—a lot of people got credit for it, which is alright with me. But it's a fact—I did this stuff so many years ago. What is called world music today—I started the damn thing!
African music is not world music. It's a phenomenal music in its own right, but it is indigenous. I worked with Salif Keita on his record called Amen [1991] and it's a masterpiece. It was voted in France as best world music record of all time. I produced and I wrote all the arrangements and orchestrations and composed for it too. The arrangements are very intricate. [pauses] I'm not trying to put myself in a special spot, but it was so natural for me to play with Salif. Then I found out he grew up with Black Market. The young African musicians like Youssou N'Dour, Salif Keita and all the West African masters, they all grew up with Weather Report music and in fact in West Africa they didn’t have the CDs or records, they had some pirate tapes—they only knew my name and they thought because my name is Zawinul that it was a Zulu band.
Why do you feel you haven’t received proper credit for your contributions to hip-hop and world music?
I think a lot of people recognize it. But, I've been reading a lot of reviews worldwide and many, many writers have credited others in the United States, Europe and Japan as being the first one to make this music. It's strange the way it goes. But I don't mind the way it goes. I have no problem with recognition—I get plenty of recognition. I have never had a problem. I'm recognized.
Although your work—solo and with Weather Report—possesses a great deal of global influences, most people look back at it as fusion, rather than world music.
It's really weird. But people can listen again and judge for themselves. Sony is gonna release a Weather Report boxed set soon which my son Ivan and I mixed. It’s got live and unissued material. This material is absolutely devastating. This is ten times as good as anything we put on record before. The boxed set will be very interesting. It's going to blow people away. It sounds like it was recorded yesterday. I dunno when it’s coming out. They’re [Sony] dragging their tails.
A lot of Weather Report fans point to the 8:30 album as one of the best live recordings around.
This is at least on the same level. It’s just really incredible. I think it's better. They also just came out with the Weather Report albums as high resolution compact discs in Japan. They sound phenomenal. My records sound good too and I give my son a lot of credit for the sound. They conducted a field test in Mix magazine and they chose three records including My People because of the multiple layers and the nice little hidden types of treasures on it. When you hear the disc with headphones, it’s really a killer. The next disc is gonna be even better.
You have a live Zawinul Syndicate album due shortly too.
We've been on a world tour throughout 1997. We've played 106 cities this year—including a few week-long gigs in San Francisco, New York, Tokyo and Los Angeles. It's quite a tour—we went to Africa, India, South America and Japan and we've been recording these gigs to make a great world tour record. The material draws from My People. Our studio records sound good and they feel like we’re really playing live—which we do. But I’m really looking forward to this record coming out.
How did you choose the combination of musicians that appear on My People?
I come from sound. I need sound to make music. Everybody does, but some less than others. I'm totally depending on sound and if I have a piece of music, I need the right interpreter to make the piece come off. This is the premise for me—to find the people so I can express the music correctly. Sometimes you never have the opportunity to have the best musicians, but I always have the best musicians, although sometimes I can’t get them all together at one time.
Describe how the typical piece on My People came together.
My people are the people. They're everywhere on the planet. So, the pieces were very easy to put together when I explained the concept to other musicians. By the time I had the pieces together, I was trying to find the best people to interpret them—especially the piece called "Bemoya." I wrote that seven years ago as an instrumental and then I realized I wanted Salif Keita to sing it—we’re good friends. I took the tapes to Paris and recorded Salif and then I went to Switzerland to do Burhan Ocal. Then I went to Austria and did the yodelers—that’s the way I got it all together. I used to live in Malibu before moving to New York. While I was in Malibu, I recorded friends like Alex Acuna. It was a long process but that’s not why it took so long to make the record. When I moved, it took me a long time to build the studio and continue the album. In general, the process wasn’t that involved and again, it was something I wanted to say for a long time. "My people" are not just Austrians or white people. It seems to me that when anybody talks about "my people" it's about people who are of their race or nationality. I wish most people could get away from this concept so we can look at ourselves as all being from out of one pot.
How did you hook up with Salif Keita to work on his Amen album?
I got a fax from Island Records and they requested me to produce his record. I had never heard of him back then and I told him to send me some tapes and they sent me a record and cassette of his traditional Malaysian songs. I listened to the first piece, but didn’t like what I heard, but checked it out further and liked that stuff. So, I took the job to produce, arrange and orchestrate the album. First, Island wanted Quincy Jones and then they decided they wanted to go with me and it was good fun. We recorded in Paris and I improvised all of the arrangements here [in the USA]. I had the lead track of his voice, drum machine, a couple of keyboard lines, SMPTE code and I had my son Ivan transfer the codes, and I started to improvise the music and that was it.
The album received a great deal of acclaim.
It did. It got a Grammy nomination in the States and won the best world music record award in France. We made the best out of it. We toured—his band and my band together. Last summer, Salif played with my band at several concerts as a special guest.
Did your work on Keita’s album influence the way My People evolved?
No, not at all. If you listen to Black Market and things I wrote many years ago, there's not a lot of difference. I grew of course because I do music everyday and I learn new things about life everyday. So I am growing as a musician and it's all one concept.
Stories of the Danube is your first orchestral recording. Why did you choose to make one at this point in your career?
It had nothing to do with me. It is tremendously expensive to make a project like this. It costs a lot of money. There are very few composers that can say they’ve been recorded with a symphony in their lifetime—that’s because of the expense. I was fortunate to meet Karl Gerbel, the man responsible for the record. He was the director of the Brucknerhaus in Linz, Austria. He’s a wonderful guy and had access to wonderful facilities. He gave me the commission to write a symphony several years ago. I was there to play a couple of times with my band and my agent in Vienna spoke with him quite often and suggested it was a good idea to do something with the symphony. He jumped at the idea. When you get a commission, they have to have money—not only for the recording, but just to get the piece written too because I had to lay off from other things for a few months, although I improvised the whole thing in three days.
There are a couple of pieces in there from a few years ago—like I said, things have to fit. What is called "Gypsy" on the album used to be called "Doctor Honoris Causa" from my Atlantic album [1971’s Zawinul]. I wrote it in 1966, and I wrote the last movement suite a long time ago too—it’s also on My People as "Orient Express." So, I use things because I want to tell a story. I doesn’t matter when I wrote it. It’s all good because it’s not doctored together—it’s a natural thing and it lasts long. That’s why Weather Report has lasted longer than anyone else from its era. Also, improvisation itself is much more lasting. Improvisation doesn’t come from the brain—it's pre-brain. It's much quicker and that's one talent I must admit I do have—I can improvise a long piece and it fits together.
Rumor has it you’re an extraordinarily demanding bandleader.
I am. Because when I play alone things are so clear and I want clarity in expression and I want to tell a story and when you tell a story and then you have to tell it with other people, it's very important that there is great discipline. I don't mean playing arrangements, I mean songs, and I make up the arrangements and cues. It's like a conductor playing with an orchestra, but a conductor has a score in front of him and the musicians have music. On Stories Of The Danube, there are improvised parts, but the bulk of the music is written and will never change, so it has to be conducted correctly. The record is not nearly as good as the same orchestra plays it now because we've performed it several times since recording it. What happened when we went to the Czech republic to record it with the philharmonic orchestra is that they had not seen the music. My music is much more difficult than Beethoven’s music or Mahler’s music because the rhythmic structure of my music is coming from the ground. And it’s not like Mozart’s music in which you always have the rhythm provided with the violins and woodwinds moving in a 16th note pattern. My music doesn’t do that. One section of violins might break up into up-beats and others might come in on top of that.
Contrast the work you’re doing with Zawinul Syndicate to Weather Report’s output.
I really can’t. I’m still the same person and I’m a better musician now. It’s a different situation really. I didn’t have a guitar player with Weather Report and now we do. I had a sax then and now we don’t. There is an interpretive difference perhaps, but the music is still mine and a lot of the things you hear me do today, I wrote then. I wrote a lot of the music I play today back then. I’m making new music almost every day when I’m not on the road. Over the years, I have written perhaps 5,000 pieces of different music of different lengths. I like having a concept for records so the pieces fit together. That’s what I did on this one too—I needed something little to finish the album with and found this piece called "Many Churches." I don’t know when I wrote it. I wanted to record it with a choir first, but I didn’t have the finances and time, so I did it as an instrumental. For me, a record is a statement, a storytelling experience and it’s gotta fit together somewhat. I like there to be a line through the whole album and in that way, My People is very successful.
Describe the circumstances that led to Weather Report disbanding in 1986.
Our contract ran out—that was number one. The name Weather Report suffocated me and Wayne Shorter as well. Weather Report was more well-known than we were and there was no time for me to do anything. I had offers to play classical music and other things and they are experiences one has to have. When I grew up, I had very little time to play that and I had the opportunity to do so with a friend of mine from Vienna named Friedrich Gulda. He’s the greatest Mozart interpreter of the century and he invited me to play with him at his concerts. It was a very good thing to try out, but I’m not a Mozart player. I don’t really like Mozart. To me, it doesn’t mean anything. But I do like Brahms and we decided we’d play the "Hadyn Variations" for two pianos—the best piece ever written for two pianos. It’s very difficult to play and it was a challenge for me and that’s what I did right after Weather Report. But with Weather Report, I had no time to do anything. We toured and did a record every year. If you asked Wayne, he’d tell you the load of the work was on my shoulders. During the band, he worked with Milton Nascimento and Joni Mitchell—he had that freedom more than I had. The main work was dropped in my lap and I didn’t really have time to do the little projects I wanted to. It got tiresome, although the band was always a wonderful band.
I was under the impression that Weather Report was more of a partnership between you and Shorter.
It was a great partnership for 16 years and Wayne did work too, but the main load was on my shoulders and I wanted to get away from this and he also wanted to get away. There was a great opportunity to do so. You play 16 years together and what do you want in life, you know? [laughs] With a great musician like Wayne Shorter, it was fantastic and we're still great friends today, but it was time. I'm very happy that we did it.
In 1996, you and Shorter briefly negotiated with Verve to reform Weather Report.
We were talking about it, but it didn't materialize. It was the idea of the late Anna Maria Shorter. We talked a bit, but we had our price and when the price was not met by Verve, we abandoned the idea.
My assumption is there would have been a great financial incentive for the label to make a reunion happen.
Yeah, but maybe it had something to do with the fact that Wayne's last record didn't sell as well as they hoped it would. And the money was big.
Critics, music historians and fans alike point to Weather Report as a band that truly changed the face of music forever. What’s your assessment?
I don't know how important Weather Report is. I think it's a totally different ballgame now compared to when we started playing using electronic instruments in a way they had never been used. It's just a fine music played with different instruments. Also, the compositional quality of Wayne Shorter and myself, frankly speaking, is unique. The way we put together quartets and quintets—there was nothing missing. Weather Report sounds as fresh today as it did then. We always had great musicians and I still do. I've always had great musicians. They're the only ones who can even approach this music. I'd never have a guy play Bebop in my band—it would not fit. I don't play Bebop, I play another type of music. Dizzy [Gilliespie] once called me to say "Man, I just heard one of your records. That's music man." That really made me feel good because we had some funny backlash from people who said we were selling out because we were using electronic instruments. It's such idiocy. It’s ridiculous that someone could place that much importance on the instrument to be that great. An instrument is not important. It is the way one plays that is important. Instruments don’t play by themselves. A piano is certainly not a better instrument than a synthesizer, but if a synthesizer is played like a piano, it becomes a very bad instrument. It doesn't work. You can't play a trumpet like a violin—it doesn't go. That's the problem—the players, not the instrument. Any instrument is a wonderful thing.
The years immediately following Weather Report were a bit spotty for you. First you went out on the road with Weather Update—a band featuring several Weather Report alumni. Then you went on a solo tour. Neither were consistently well-received by critics and audiences.
Yeah, we had to take care of business. That’s why we did Weather Update. And immediately after that I made a nice solo record called Dialects which is the best record I’ve ever made in my life. But solo touring in the beginning wasn’t a big success because people didn’t believe I was really playing everything they were hearing. Some reviews of the concerts said "Zawinul is cheating. All he is doing is mixing the sound." And in reality, I was doing everything. I didn’t even use sequencers. I played all the music live—I had two drum machines because I needed those rhythms, but that was it.
Some people credit you for bringing Jaco Pastorious into the public spotlight and others have intimated that you may have been partially responsible for his downfall.
I could never even remotely think of anything which I would have ever done which could have been responsible for his demise or downfall. Why should that be?
The allegation is you may have played a role in encouraging his substance abuse.
I never introduced anyone to drugs. I’ve never used drugs. I gave Jaco a drink one time. If one drink does it, you’re a goner anyhow—believe me. I gave him a drink one time and told him to loosen up—I did do that. If one drink did it, then I’m responsible for his downfall. But drugs? I never used drugs myself.
You were once quoted in GQ magazine as saying "By 1980, Jaco was always angry and drunk. He began to try to out-macho me, to out-drink me, as if it were a competition or something. Sure, I drank and occasionally did a little blow, but I liked myself too much to hurt myself."
Hardly, hardly. [pauses] I smoked a little pot here and there and had a little thing [makes a sniffing sound] once in a month or something, but it was not a thing to do. I was a busy guy man, I had a lot of work to do. I was into music. I'm not stupid. I had a family with three children to feed. I was a real connoisseur about that. I haven't done drugs in 25 years, but here and there when the stuff was right and we were very tired—I mean, we were in the studio sometimes 46 hours to mix a record. Yeah, I had a little blow, but it had nothing to do with being strung-out or needing the stuff everyday. Drinkers—Wayne and me were drinkers. I'm still a drinker, but I'm 65 years old and I don't look like I'm a wreck. Usually, when people drink they look like wrecks by the time they're in their 40s. I box when I'm at home every week 15 rounds with my trainer and I do sports everyday.
Do you hold Jaco in the same esteem as you hold Miles or Cannonball?
No. I think he was an inventor. He created a style and he had a wonderful soul as a human being. But he didn't live long enough and he didn't contribute enough to being the same thing as Miles. He didn't do that. Longevity is something. For some kind of reason, as a human being he was phenomenal—a phenomenal talent musically and other things too. He could paint, draw, he was an architect and a national athlete. He was a wonderful friend and he felt like a brother or son at times. But in terms of creativity, I cannot put him on the same level as Miles or Cannonball. I think he was just as influential as they were—maybe even more than Cannonball. People are sleeping on Cannonball—people still don't get him. Cannonball was awesome—an incredible musician. I played with him nine-and-a-half years. He never stopped and never played the same thing twice. I never heard him make a mistake—he was a master musician. But with Jaco, I think there was a limitation there.
What was it?
Maybe he didn't allow himself. He was once in a house in Germany with a Gypsy friend of mine and he wrote down my name with my birthday and his name and his birthday and then the other page says "I don’t wanna be a second-hand Joe Zawinul." He was somehow occupied with me too much. We were also true friends as Wayne and I am and I think that friendship lasted to the last day. Jaco always loved as a friend, a man and a musician and I just hoped he could have done better than he did. After Weather Report, he made a nice record with his big band. But he had deteriorated—he didn't have any hold or nothing, because he really wanted to be with Weather Report. We didn't fire him or anything and he didn't leave. What happened is, in 1980 we had all these contracts and he wanted to take off for a year and Wayne and me said "Jesus Christ, we have to go on. We can't wait a whole year until Mr. Pastorious comes back." And he might have thought at the time that he was not replaceable but there is nobody in the world who is not.
Do you ever think about your own mortality?
I'm not afraid of death. The reason could be that I grew up in an environment in which I was always exposed to death every day for years. Experiencing bomb attacks in the night and day and actual war in your country is very different than watching a war from 1000 miles away from your home. We had the war right there in my house. The Russians came in and many of my friends died, so this type of life prepares you for death. An 11 or 12 year-old kid in America will play with a rubber duck, whereas I used to bury people—dead soldiers and all that. When I was 12, I used to steal horses from the Russian wagons and kill them for food. I ploughed fields with Oxen. That was my life. The kids were the men. I was trained for the military—I was a bazooka man. But going back to mortality, I felt when the war was over, everything was easy, but I went through some very hard times in America too. I was the only white guy to play with black bands in the South during segregation. I often had to sit in the bottom of the car when we drove through certain parts of the South. Those kinds of things never phased me—I wanted to play music with the best and I could play on that level with the best.
You recently told me you believe America is in cultural decline—that there are far fewer storytellers than there used to be.
Everything is in decline the moment you stop giving the artist freedom. That goes for everywhere, but it is happening in America right now. I think record companies are at great fault. In general, they don’t want to develop talent, but rather get the most out of them in the short-term. They’re steering people to things they perhaps wouldn’t do but have to do and not everyone has the integrity to say "No way." People are hungry and they have to make money and take care of their families, so it’s a great pressure. Only when you can afford it from an artistic or financial point of view can you express what you want to express. Before I made My People, I was with Sony for a long time and then there was interest from Verve Records over at Polygram. They told me at the first meeting I had with them—and it was the only meeting I had with them—that they wanted me to sign up but only to play acoustic piano on the first record and only Duke Ellington’s music. I got up and left.
Despite you being a big Duke Ellington fan?
I'm the Duke Ellington fan, but that had nothing to do with it. They were telling me what to do and not only that, it was a question of "What is in it for me to play Duke Ellington’s music? I'm a composer. I like my music and I like it as much as I like Duke Ellington's music. Duke is one of the greatest musicians who ever lived, but everybody is an individual and it has nothing to do with being better or not as good. It's about the storyline—what you have to tell. And in that respect, I like my music just as much. It sounds very different, but in principle it's still the same.
So, where have the individuals—the storytellers—gone?
They are many storytellers, but they're hidden somewhere. In the older days that's all you had. You didn't have these phenomenal music schools which are everywhere today. That was not so good because the people didn't play their instruments as well as they do today. That was the way times were. If you didn't have a sound of your own, you couldn't make it. All the guys I used to play with when I came to America—each one was a different individual. They had different sounds and different ways of playing and that's what made the business go around. But today, jazz has become very boring. And when I talk about jazz music, I'm talking about who everyone talks about when they talk about jazz.
People tend to toss names such as Wynton Marsalis and Keith Jarrett around when the word "jazz" is invoked in the mainstream these days.
To me, this is very boring music—most of it. It has nothing happening. Nothing is sticking. They're playing music perfectly with wonderful intonation and technique, but it's dangerous for jazz itself. I do wish these people all the best. I’m happy that it goes like that in a way because we used to live like rats when I didn’t make any money. We used to have to play every night and drive everywhere. We didn’t have the accommodations available today. It was a difficult time, believe me. We all had families to support. I very much respect Wynton as a noble guy who is doing a lot for keeping the great names alive, but the music comes out short. Those little upstarts—that age group, it’s not happening. When I listen to old Cannonball, Horace Silver, Blue Mitchell, Art Blakey and Miles stuff, it’s way, way, way superior. It’s in another league—the fire, the excitement. But that doesn’t mean the new guys don’t have it, they’ve just been geared to do the same stuff. I was able to afford to say no, but how many people can say no to a major league contract? Wynton has enough power to do what he wants to do, but it's just not my cup of tea.
If I was coming up now I don't think I'd like to be going in their direction musically. But it's not their fault and it's not criticism because it's not just music. Everything happens like that. It's a spiral going down. In the arts, music and movies, everything is now geared up to a specific audience—the young people, who in general listen to music. And it’s not music anymore. Rock & roll was a great movement and very important to all of our lives, but it happened. It made it possible for jazz musicians to get a piece of the rock. It was a great change and cultural movement but the way it's developed has got more and more ugly. The way songs are being performed today compared to the older days—now, you don't understand the words and they have so many embellishments and very little substance. I hope I don’t sound like I have sour grapes. I'm a very happy, happy person. But if you ask me, I'll tell you what I think and it's just not happening for me.
Describe your transition from straight-ahead jazz to the much more expansive approach you brought to the form in the '60s.
I was tired of standard form of jazz—you know, the A-A-B-B and the changes. I was tired of that. Sax, trumpet, bass solo then drums and back to the melody—that bored the shit out of me after years of doing it. That’s when I started changing my music and totally opened it up with a lot of great musicians. Thelonious Monk and Dizzy [Gillespie] came to my house one morning on a Saturday like today and Monk heard one of my tunes and said "Man, what you doing? I really like that! You're the only one doing different things." And like I said earlier, one time, Dizzy called me on thanksgiving in Oklahoma and said "Man, this is the way music should be"—this was a few years before he died. I knew I was on the right track and Wayne [Shorter] and me, we understood each other since we first met in 1959. I met him not long after I arrived in the States and we decided one day that we were gonna work together and we're gonna have a band. Wayne comes from a different direction, but he already that kind of openness with no limits.
You were part of Miles’ groundbreaking Bitches Brew line-up. Reflect on the time you spent with him during those days.
I knew Miles until he died in the 90s. Bitches Brew wasn’t the end of Miles and me. We spent a lot of time together talking about music following Bitches Brew. I did five albums with him and he was another great, wonderful guy and philosopher. We didn't pay that much attention to music itself. Music is the result of things, it's not the thing itself.
How did Miles influence your life?
I wouldn't say that he influenced my life.
Many point to the work you did with Miles in the late '60s as the music that most significantly impacted your musical evolution.
It is the other way around, frankly speaking. I think he got more from me than I got from him in that respect. The only difference is that I was much younger when I heard him. I was very young in 1948 when I heard Birth Of The Cool. It influenced my music, but it didn't influence my life. But music is a big part of my life.
I understand you don’t look back on Bitches Brew as the landmark album many believe it to be.
No, I don't. But I'm not a critic and what I like I like and what I don't like I don't like. It's a good album with a nice atmosphere. I don't think there's anything Earth-shaking about that record. When we got out of a session, Miles drove me home and he asked me why I didn’t say anything during the ride and I said "I didn’t like what we did and what is being done." It's a good sounding record. There's a lot of power on those sessions. Everyone had respect for each other and no-one overplayed. It could have been utter chaos but it was pretty organized. Let it be as it is. It is what it is. The past is a done deal. That's for sure.
You often speak very fondly of working with Cannonball Adderley. How often do your memories of working with him revisit you today?
Those things are memories and memories are strong. The impact he had on my life is great. I played almost ten years with Cannonball Adderley. He’s the most underrated musician of the century. Hardly anybody talks about Cannonball, but he was a giant. He was his own guy. He didn’t play like Charlie Parker. He played like no-one else.
An album called Cannonball Plays Zawinul is due out shortly.
Yeah, that makes me feel good. I did a lot of writing for Cannonball’s band. I had a large amount of songs on several albums, but this is a nice thing because I always liked Cannonball and his band. We had one of the longest working, most excellent bands in the history of jazz. It's all a part of me today, but not to the point where I'm obsessed by it. But there are no bands today. The record companies are always trying to put together names and it's usually bullshit. They want everybody to be a star and it never sounds like a band—it sounds like some guys put together to make a good buck.
A band called Portishead used Weather Report samples from "Elegant People" on the track "Strangers" from its album Dummy. The band received permission prior to doing it and gave you full credit. But do you find it strange that many of today’s acts feel compelled to sample something old in order to create something new?
It's not strange at all. It's really, really nice. I think some of the sampled music has some artistic value. I have no problem with someone doing something new. I just don't like stuff that's warmed up. Like Bebop—it's not Bebop what these new guys are playing. [very sarcastically] Jazz music is a lifestyle. It's not notes, chords and arpeggios. Today’s improvisation is too based on the knowledge of chords and the way they practice the chords. It's not a melodic thing anymore like the older days. It was much more important to play shorter and to play more variable, valid stuff. Today, a lot of solos are long and uninteresting and the influence usually comes from John Coltrane's group. He, himself was a master musician, but he put so much emphasis on chord knowledge and technique, and now the kids want to show how fast they can play. This is the same with piano players and most instrumentalists—it's speed. That’s gonna change again and hopefully the kids who are now 16 and 17 years-old have a little more sense and maybe some more stories to tell. The other kids from the other generation came right out of school and immediately got a record contract. Do you know how difficult it used to be to get a record contract in the olden days? It was almost impossible. And then if you did, the record distribution was so tiny and small. It was very difficult.
You’re now selling a lot more records in Europe than America. Why do you believe that’s so?
Yeah, it’s true. I sell a lot of records in Europe and Japan. In America, people don't work the way they work over there. Also, the audience is much more alert there. We're successful in America too. We sold out every night at Yoshi's in Oakland, Catalina's in Los Angeles and The Blue Note in New York. But selling records is different—especially without radio support. I'm also with an independent record label now. But if you're with Warner or Verve, they have so much money. They can put a lot of money in an artist. I'm with an independent company and I like them. I can do what I want to do, they treat me well and I'm doing very well financially. But in America, unless you have advertising all of the time, it's very difficult. I've dealt with that record industry stuff for so long. I don't expect anything. I really, really don't.
Your son Ivan is playing a significant role in your career today.
Yeah, Ivan is 28. He's my engineer, my keyboard guy and we always work together. He's phenomenal. He has an incredible knowledge and it's the way I like it. He has great ideas too. He put together the drum rhythm on "Potato Blues" on My People. It’s a pleasure to work with the family.
Did you encourage him to pursue a career in music?
I didn’t have to. I haven’t had to encourage anyone in my family to do anything—they just do it. They know what it takes to make a living and they work hard.
You mentioned you’re really into boxing. Compare the life of a boxer to that of a musician.
Boxing is the greatest sport in the world and really, it’s not even a sport—it’s a passion. It’s funny, I know a lot of boxers and they all love music, and all the musicians I know really love boxing. There are parallels in terms of improvising music like I do—everything I’ve ever written is improvised, including the symphony. I improvised the entire symphony and then I orchestrated it. But when you play with a band, it’s very similar to being involved in team sports. And you can’t blink an eye—you’ve always got to be alert or you’ll miss the moment. It’s all related. You gotta use your limbs, hands and feet in music and you have to do that in boxing as well. But when you make a mistake in boxing, you’re gonna have a problem. [laughs] If you make a mistake in music, you’ll have less of a problem. You’re not gonna get knocked out!
