Like his friend and onetime collaborator
Miles Davis,
Joe Zawinul was not one to look back on his past and savor the view. Yet as in the case of
Miles (his parting concert in Montreux),
Zawinul finally took the plunge in central Europe late in life by revisiting his old
Weather Report repertoire -- live at his Vienna nightclub, Joe Zawinul's Birdland. The significant difference is that while
Miles doubled back to a re-creation of the original
Gil Evans charts,
Zawinul retrofitted his tunes with new big-band arrangements by
Vince Mendoza, read with gusto and heft by the crack visiting
WDR Big Band of Cologne, Germany. To this,
Zawinul added his own synthesizer virtuosity and some overdubs from his Malibu studio, two distinguished
WR alumni who still play with him off and on -- bassist
Victor Bailey and percussionist
Alex Acuña -- and drummer
Nathaniel Townsley. In just about every case,
Mendoza's charts replicate and flesh out every twist and turn in the
Weather Report originals, paying off big-time with "Brown Street," an overlooked swinger from the
WR 8:30 album that gets the remake album off to a percolating start. Occasionally he piles on additional harmonic tissue, as in the
Miles-period "In a Silent Way." Some of the writing seems a bit redundant, yet things never become too overloaded thanks to the ceaseless drive of the rhythm section, and there is plenty of room for solos. Only on "Procession" does
Zawinul write his own big-band chart; though tied tightly to the original recording, it sounds looser than most of the
Mendoza charts as it works out over the drone. A few of the song choices are unexpected: the frantic "Fast City" and the strutting title tune from the
Night Passage album; the former features some liquid synth solos by
Zawinul and stimulating tenor sax by
Paul Heller, and the latter some relaxed flügelhorn from
Kenny Rampton. Others aren't from the
WR catalog at all; "Silent Way" predates it, of course, though
WR did play the tune in concert, and "March of the Lost Children" and the perennial "Carnavalito" are from the post-
WR solo years. Unlike most jazz tribute projects -- including a fairly bloodless, multi-artist 1999 salute to
Weather Report on Telarc -- this double-CD set isn't burdened with artificial nostalgia, and it benefits a lot from the presence of one of the two founding co-leaders (the other being the absent
Wayne Shorter). And
Zawinul is the crucial one, because the crusty Austrian keyboardist sees to it that the swing is the thing and that the groove is deep. ~ Richard S. Ginell