Unknown soldier
(Zawinul)
Journalist Conrad Silvert described "Unknown
Soldier" as "one of Zawinul's most complex early
compositions... It is nearly symphonic in scope, an
emotional evocation of bombardment and its
aftermath." Zawinul told Silvert, "In 1945 my cousin
and I buried two German soldiers who had been
dead a long time, in very bad shape. One guy was
rolled over by a tank. We opened their uniforms to
break off their name tags, but on one of them there
wasn't any tag. It's that same old concept of the
unknown soldier. That's what I thought when I
wrote this, with the prayers in there--it's partially a
recall of that night I told you about, September 10,
1944, when Vienna was burning, people were
crying, buried underneath the ruins."
Zawinul recounted the story again in 1981: "I was
not only aware of 'the unknown soldier,' that
famous saying, but I was once burying two German
solders, very messed up, one was rolled over by a
tank. They all had tags on for identification, and
when you found one you snapped half of it off and
sent it in. Neither of those guys had it on. The song
only happened later on--I mean, it takes years.
Then it was an everyday thing. But it got me into
the idea of how many people in the world died for
actually nothing, and nobody knows what ever
happened. It's a nostalgic kind of thing." He later
expanded and orchestrated this composition for his
1995 symphony, Stories of the Danube.
To my knowledge, "Unknown Soldier" marked
Zawinul's first use of a synthesizer on a recording.
It was the ARP 2600, which he used on "Unknown
Soldier" to produce sound effects. The ARP
Instrument Company was founded by Alan R.
Pearlman in 1969, and in 1970 the company
unveiled its first instrument, the ARP 2500--a rather
complex- looking, multi-box modular, analog
synthesizer. The second product, the ARP 2600
was in some sense a simplification of the 2500,
consisting of a fixed set of basic synthesizer
modules packaged in a single box, with a separate
keyboard, both of which were packaged in vinyl-
covered luggage-style cases. The unique thing
about the 2600 was that its modules were pre-
connected in a standard way at the factory, allowing
a user to get started easily. But those connections
could be added to or overridden by patch chords. It
was a highly regarded synthesizer in its time,
remaining in production until 1981, and is now
considered a classic of its era. Zawinul ultimately
acquired two 2600s.
Roger Powell, who is credited as a "consultant" on I
Sing, worked for ARP in the early 1970s, and in
1971 he toured the United States putting on demos
and talking to musicians and dealers. He later
played keyboards for Todd Rungren and Utopia,
and last I heard was an audio engineer for Silicon
Graphics. In Mark Vail's book Vintage
Synthesizers, Powell recalls Zawinul's initial
experience with the 2600: "Joe came up to Boston
to play at the Jazz Workshop. I met him and showed
him the 2600. It took him a little time to pick up on
some of its features. For instance, the 2600 lets
you route the output either through the VCA
[voltage-controlled amplifier] or directly from the
VCF [Voltage-Controlled Filter]. If the output came
from the VCF, the sound would always be on. After
Joe had the instrument for a week or so, he called
and said, 'Hey, man, the sound is fantastic. Now
tell me, how do you make it stop?' But he kept at it,
and became one of the 2600's leading musical
innovators. Eventually he had two 2600s, one of
which was controlled by ARP's model 1601 16-
step analog sequencer."
It took a while for Zawinul to incorporate the 2600s
into his live set-up. In 1984 Zawinul recalled, "On
that live record [the second side of I Sing The Body
Electric] I still didn't have a synthesizer. I only had
an electric piano that I prepared with different
things and a ring modulator that Carlos Santana
had given me. I bought an ARP and didn't play it for
a long time because it was difficult to get the
patches, but eventually I incorporated it." [DB84] In
1978 he told Conrad Silvert, "Mostly, I have learned
about synthesizers on my own, by trial and error.
When I first got the ARP, Roger Powell was working
for them and helped set it up for 'Unknown
Soldier.'"
|
English 
Deutsch 
Italiano 
Español 
Russian 
