Heavy Weather

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – In the early 1970s, jazz fusion gained popularity when American saxophonist Wayne Shorter, Austrian-born keyboard player Joe Zawinul, and Czech bassist Miroslav Vitous formed the jazz band Weather Report.  The group played their hit song “Birdland” live at Stadthalle Offenbach Concert in Germany, in 1978. The jazz-fusion instrumental composition was written by Zawinul using brand new elaborate musical technology that incorporated a Polyphonic synthesizer and new forms of amplification.

“Birdland” debuted in 1977 on the group’s 7th studio album, Heavy Weather. It hit stores a few weeks after the group hired bassist Jaco Pastorius.  The award-winning song became known as a jazz standard, and attracted huge media coverage, propelling Weather Report into fame on the jazz scene. Birdland’s popularity drove other musicians to license it for their set lists, among them: Quincy Jones, Buddy Rich, The Manhattan Transfer, Maynard Ferguson’s big band, and The String Cheese Incident.

In 1994 I profiled Weather Report on my Jazz Club USA show to the Middle East [mp3 here]. I think the group was definitely one of the pre-eminent jazz fusion bands.

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Weather Report grouped other acclaimed musicians, including Jaco Pastorius, Victor Bailey, Peter Erskine, Airto Moreira, Omar Hakim, Alphonso Johnson, and Chester Thompson. Through his skills and melodic bass quality, Pastorius helped to further push the group’s popularity. But to many fans’ dismay (including me)  in 1987, Weather Report was no more. The group disbanded.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

John Pizzarelli's latest album

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Jazz legend John Pizzarelli is getting ready to release his new album Double Exposure, a collection of great pop oldies rearranged and recast in a jazz style. Pizzarelli is one of the most versatile guitarists and singers on the jazz scene today. His latest album, which is proving the idea that jazz and pop can exist together, has taken everyone by surprise.

With a collection of 13 pop, rock and folk songs from a different generation, Double Exposure opens with Pizzarelli’s reversioned Beatles‘ upbeat song,” I feel Fine”. The soft spoken Pizzarelli and his band initially road tested songs during a performance last year at the renowned Birdland jazz club in New York City.  Pizzaelli and his band played Lee Morgan’s “Sidewinder” incorporating the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine” inside.  The mix was well-received and drew applause.

Pizzarelli  also rearranged other oldies on Double Exposure, including Neil Young’s “Harvest Moon,” James Taylor’s “Traffic Jam,” the Allman Brothers classic “In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed,”  Joni Mitchell’s “Free Man In Paris,” Tom Waits’ “Drunk On The Moon,” Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller’s “Ruby Baby,” and songs by Billy Joel and Donald Fagen of Steely Dan.

The album ends with a subtle remake of Seals and Crofts’ 1973 soft rock hit “Diamond Girl,” which quotes directly from Miles Davis’ 1950’s iconic “So What.”

“It’s funny – when we first did ‘Diamond Girl’ and a lot of the horn songs we actually got to play live at Birdland about a year ago just to see if this idea was anything,” said Pizzarelli in an interview with VOA’s Jazz Beat. “We actually played ‘So What’ and then sang ‘Diamond Girl’.”  Pizzarelli said people liked the new style very much.

Listen to John Pizzarelli and selected songs from Double Exposure:

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John Pizzarelli was born in New Jersey in April 1960. He grew up in a house crowded with guitars, and everybody in his family played an instrument at one time or another. His father is the iconic guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli.

“There were guitars in the house all the time. I once joked that if you wanted to sit down on the couch, you had to move a guitar you know,” said Pizzarelli who is known for his charming stage presence. “And eventually you say I’m moving this guitar very much I’ve got to try and play it. It was just something that we did and I didn’t even realize that I was making a living doing it.”

In his 20s, John Pizzarelli used to go out on jazz, pop and rock gigs, having a good time and getting a check. “It was just something that we enjoyed. I was making a living doing it. So, It’s very interesting how this sort of evolved,” he said.

Guitarist and composer John Pizzarelli

Besides his father and sister, Pizzarelli was highly influenced by the legendary vocalist and pianist Nat King Cole, trumpeter Miles Davis, singer Frank Sinatra, pianist Duke Ellington, The Beatles, saxophonist Stan Getz and songwriter-arranger-guitarist-pianist Antonio Carlos Jobim.

With more than 40 albums under his belt, Pizzarelli is a prolific guitarist who has worked in a vast range of studio settings with many famous musicians – most recently in February – with Beatles legend Paul McCartney for an iTunes concert at Capital Records Studios in Hollywood, California.

“I made the record “Kisses on the Bottom” with him and Diana Krall was the piano player… and I got to play with him on the Grammy,” Pizzarelli said. “He [Paul McCartney] is just as humble and as lovely a musician as you could find, and a really talented musician.”

In 1998, Pizzarelli released his studio album, John Pizzarelli Meets the Beatles, as a tribute to the Fab Four (The Beatles). The idea for one of the most talked-about albums was to recast and re-imagine some of the great oldies in a jazz setting. So he placed the songs into a different time as if someone else had performed them first. For instance, he rearranged “Here Comes The Sun” in a Brazilian Bossa Nova style – it was meant as a Jobim/Getz tribute.

Pizzarelli, who is also a radio host and a television personality, has just returned to the United States from a European tour where he performed and promoted Double Exposure. The album is slated for release in May.

For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America

Diaa Bekheet | Washington, DC – Anytime I hear the word “Birdland,” I get nostalgic. It reminds me of the good old days when I used to take strolls from midtown Manhattan to the west side of Broadway, watching the skyscrapers in the “Big Apple” — New York City. The year was 1996.  At the time, fabulous “Birdland” — a commercially-successful fusion song by the Weather Report, had become a jazz standard. It  was blaring as I passed by Manhattan’s re-born “Birdland Jazz Club”, “The Jazz corner of the world” as it was labeled by jazz legend Charlie Parker.

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Saxophonist Charlie Parker, nicknamed “Bird” inspired Morris & Irving Levy to open a club named “Birdland” in New York City, 62 years ago.

Birdland Jazz Club originally opened its doors in the winter of 1949. Within five years, it had attracted nearly 1.5 million people, each paying $1.50 admission to sample the one-of-a-kind atmosphere and enjoy live gigs. Performers like Charlie Parker and Count Basie and his big band played from 9:00 PM until dawn. But the club’s fortunes started to decline in the 1960s when Rock & Roll music started attracting many Birdland fans. Sadly, the club closed its doors in 1965.

Among the many other jazz greats who performed live at Birdland, we find: Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Quincy Jones, Lester Young, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Stan Getz and others.

Also at Birdland, Count Basie and his smokin’ big band recorded George Shearing‘s “Lullaby of Birdland” live. Shearing, the British pianist who overcame blindness to become a worldwide jazz star, died at 91 two weeks ago.

More on Birdland here with Russ Davis:

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For more on jazz music, listen to VOA’s Jazz America
Diaa Bekheet