Monthly Archives: May 2013

Anil Prasad’s Zawinul Interview

Anil Prasad, the journalist behind the superb Innerviews website, has brought back his 1997 Zawinul interview after being absent from the site for a few years. It’s one of the best Zawinul interviews you’ll find anywhere. A wide-ranging conversation, it touches on Joe’s relationship with Jaco and Cannonball, among other things. You can read it here.

Anil also provides a bit of behind-the-scenes story about the interview:

A true touchstone of my music journalism career is back on the Web in an extended “director’s cut” edition: My extensive Joe Zawinul interview. It’s from 1997 and is one of the most extensive interviews Joe ever gave. It’s the first interview in which I felt I was able to truly hold my own against an incredibly powerful personality. I asked some tough questions and didn’t waver, as you’ll see. Joe is my favorite musician of all time, so this was quite an occasion. Funny story: Joe and I did a number of interviews which were compiled into this piece. During one of them, he said some of the most outrageous stuff imaginable, cutting down musicians and music industry people in the most incredibly brutal way. It was amazing stuff. I noticed while he was going off, that he was looking at the recorder. He actually picked it up, looked at it, and smirked at me several times as he was engaged in this verbal assault. I left going “Oh my God, I got Joe Zawinul on tape saying all this incredibly controversial stuff!” I went home. The tape recorder wasn’t running. The tape was blank. Joe knew it all along and said all this stuff he knew I would have no record of. For the record, ever since this event, I run two recorders for every interview I do. 🙂 Miss you Joe….

Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity

There’s a new documentary project underway about Wayne titled WAYNE SHORTER: ZERO GRAVITY. According to project’s website, “ZERO GRAVITY is an intimate portrait of an artist who has influenced music for over six generations. Wayne Shorter continues to break through the imposed limitations of jazz with even more innovative compositions and recordings than he has achieved in the last 50 years. The inception of ZERO GRAVITY began in 2006 and principal photography is now in progress. Join us in celebrating Wayne Shorter’s life and musical legacy by pledging to help us complete this film by 2014.”

The production team is using crowdsourcing to raise funding. You can contribute to the project at their PledgeMusic site.

In other news, the Jazz Journalist Association voted Wayne a three-time winner in the 17th annual JJA Jazz Awards voting in the categories of Lifetime Achievement in Jazz, Small Ensemble of the Year, and Soprano Saxophonist of the Year.