Amazon.co.uk allows you to pay for your items in your local currency. Restrictions apply. Learn More. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Review
Though several of these tunes incorporated a brash rock-orientated dynamic in their original settings you'd never know that from this collection, sounding as though they were destined for this large-scale brassy setting from day one.
Recorded in 2005 in Zawinul's own jazz club, from the opening shuffle of the title track, the feelgood factor has been set to max via Vince Mendoza's astounding arrangements. The '60s-born, Grammy-winning composer/arranger grew up listening to Weather Report and his respect and grasp of the all-important groove upon which Zawinul placed such importance, rightfully dominates.
With ex-Reporter's Victor Bailey on bass and Alex Acuna on percussion augmenting Zawinul Syndicate drummer, Nathaniel Townsley, all on towering form, it is the top-drawer quality of the ensemble and solo playing of the WDR Big Band that consistently catches the breath. New York trumpeter, John Marshall offers velvet-smooth smooch around a touching, opulently romantic rendition of ''In A Silent Way'', whilst the athletic racing of Paul Heller's tenor shows how young player's respond to challenge of something as tricky to navigate as ''Fast City'' from WR's 1980 Night Passage.
It goes awry only very occasionally. The normally joyous ''Black Market'' canters a touch too sedately for it to ever really take off in the way we know it can.
Despite Zawinul's propensity to make swaggering pronouncements about his talents, his soloing was always more akin to skimming pebbles across incoming waves than surfing for glory in his outfits before or after Weather Report. Here, with the massed ranks of brass largely liberating him from providing the textured layers within his compositions, Zawinul is heard constantly sending mischievous, darting runs of notes between the big band breakers, teasing and tugging in all the right places.
For all his ability to move with the times, be it adding a soulful stitch to Cannonball Adderley's funky apparel, infusing Miles Davis' music with a pungent European twist, or hard-wiring electronics into the body of jazz itself, Zawinul never lost touch with either his roots or their traditions. The melodic and harmonic depth that informs the spacious compositions were always designed to provide a scorching back-drop for players to blaze brightly. In this respect he always proved an incredibly generous accompanist and writer.
Brown Street resounds triumphantly to these winning facets of his character and Zawinul must have been rightly proud of what he had achieved here. A better memorial to his thrilling abilities than this 2 CD set it's difficult to imagine. --Sid Smith
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Well, I don't want to be greedy, but if I could have a wish, it would be for a second volume of this stuff, to include, say, Canonball, Birdland, Madagascar. Weather Report was a wonderful, creative partnership between Zawinul and Shorter, but Zawinul was the guiding spirit. Awesome.
Now a youthful 74, Austrian-born Zawinul and the marvellous WDR Big Band from Cologne have brought Weather Report's legacy into the 21st Century courtesy of some marvellous Vince Mendoza arrangements. If you thought that WR were just too electric to work with traditional acoustic brass, and just too tight and polyrhythmic to work with a Big Band, then Brown Street will prove you wrong. In fact the blend of brass and Zawinul's ringing synthesiser sounds is a wonderful blend, and it is often hard to hear which is which. Zawinul's chosen rhythm section of Victor Bailey, Nathaniel Townsley and Alex Acuna drive things forward at a cracking pace whilst the 14 piece WDR brass cohort bring a shouting acoustic freshness to familiar themes. The result is some marvellously fresh treatments for some long-familiar pieces including, `In A Silent Way', Jaco Pastorius's achingly gorgeous `A Remark You Made' and the grooving `Boogie Woogie Waltz'. Recorded live at "Joe Zawinul's Birdland" in Vienna in front of an appreciative audience, Brown Street is a delight that could only be bettered by the inclusion of Zawinul's trademark `Birdland', if only to put Maynard Ferguson and Buddy Rich's Big Band versions to rest. Now who said jazz was purely an American art?
Paul Kelly
Recorded during a fantastic week of music making at Joe's excellent "Birdland" in Vienna this is music at its best. Read more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Listmania!
![original ALBUM classics [2007]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ODn%2BdTHSL._AA60_.jpg)
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
