Joe Zawinul: A Musical Portrait (review)

Mark Kidel's documentary Joe Zawinul: A Musical Portrait should be held as a standard for other music documentaries. It is tightly edited but relaxed, and uses its 60 minutes wisely, offering up a generous taste of Zawinul sufficient for a fan or a newcomer.

Kidel presents songs by Zawinul's band, the Zawinul Syndicate, in their entirety without interruptions or frenetic editing. The camera dotes on the musicians, capturing their energy, joy, and nuanced communication. And much of each performance is about communication. One moment the musicians may be playing feverish unison lines and in the next moment someone may peel out of formation into a solo as the others drop into restrained accompaniment. Everyone's attention is always on Zawinul who—with a look or a nod—constantly adjusts the sound, simultaneously guiding and exploring the music.

Most of the interviews with Zawinul take place in his Malibu home, high on a green hilltop overlooking the Pacific Ocean. In the opening scene, as Zawinul spars on his patio with a partner, he describes the connection between his lifelong love of boxing and how boxing helps him maintain his timing. While rapidly whapping a speed bag he points out that the bag's rhythm is erratic, which helps keep his reaction time sharp.

To help underscore the point, the camera cuts to another galloping Zawinul Syndicate performance and the musicians reacting to each other on the fly. Kidel uses this method of cutting between interview and performance at key moments judiciously throughout the film.

Over the backdrop of old photos, Zawinul describes his upbringing in Vienna, Austria, and some of the elements that helped shape his character. He grew up during World War II, he was a classically trained musician, his grandmother was a gypsy, and he fell hard for American jazz.

In 1959, he went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston but he was so accomplished at that point that he didn't stay long. He soon found work playing with trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, and later Art Blakey and Dinah Washington. By his own admission, he didn't have an original style. He hung out with Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson and others, mimicking their styles. But Roy Eldridge and Dizzy Gillespie pushed him to play something different and unique.

He joined Cannonball Adderley in 1961 and started to explore his own style. He wrote the song "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," which was a big hit for Adderley. But still Zawinul didn't feel that his playing was distinctive. He said, "I didn't play anything that came from me." So he went through a crisis and for a period he refused to play any phrase he had played before.

He had a life-changing experience when he took LSD while visiting friends who lived on a houseboat. He sat at their piano and started playing; what came out of his fingers was different than anything he ever played in his life. And that was it. His approach was never the same again. "From 1966 on I was going for it," he said.

He and his old friend Wayne Shorter played with Miles Davis during Miles' groundbreaking "Bitches Brew" period. Shortly after that, Zawinul and Shorter co-founded Weather Report, which burst in the mainstream and became the most popular jazz group on the 1970s. Weather Report's so-called "jazz fusion" blended jazz with rock instrumentation, soul, funk and ethnic music. It was during this period that Zawinul established himself as a pioneering synthesizer player, distancing himself from what he saw as the limitations of the piano.

In describing his search for a different sound, he said "I was about six years old when I realized the sound of the piano alone wasn't enough." His first accordion (which he got at age seven) didn't have any registers to change the timbre, so he stole a piece of green felt and glued it to his soundboard. "Man, it was not as loud . . . but it had something...