Birdland
(Zawinul)
A tour de force for zawinul and weather report.
Birdland, of course, was the famous new york jazz
club that had a great impact on Zawinul's life. "all of
us in vienna knew about this fabulous place,"
zawinul explained to leonard feather in 1990.
"friederich gulda, The great pianist, played there
with a jazz group and told me all about it. We all
dreamed about visiting birdland some day ... That
Club made such an impact on me. I met miles there,
and duke ellington and louis armstrong; i met my
wife maxine there. Everyone i worshiped i met at
birdland."
Sy johnson interviewed zawinul for the fall 1977
issue of jazz magazine. Johnson remarked that it
was a long trip from those days In birdland to the
tune "birdland," and asked zawinul how he
happened to write it, and how the record went
together.
"to me birdland was the most important place in my
entire life. I met everybody including my beautiful
wife in this club. I met miles, I met duke ellington. I
met anyone i ever cared for in this business. I used
to hang out there every night.
"i write my music only by improvising. All these
tunes are improvised. And then i just take them from
the tape and orchestrate Them--not really writing
any orchestrations, but just having in my head what
i want to do. I had a concept for this album to go
back To those good old days when stuff was
happening in new york. I wanted to show some of
the feeling happening in those days, man."
"the first line i had was [joe sings]. I said, 'this
sounds to me like when i was working with dinah
washington.' nothing remotely Like the music we
were into, but the kind of atmosphere we'd have
when she was stompin' her heel. That's why i got
into this tune."
I told him it sounded uncannily to me like the big
bands at birdland.
"you got it, you got it!! Exactly like when i used to
come down the stairs at 2 o'clock and count basie
or duke used to be working There. This is the
feeling i got from the whole thing. And the
saxophone thing i do on the oberheim synthesizer
really sounds like a Big ol' reed section."
I commented on the muted brass-like colors and
how the chromatic section made me laugh aloud
when i first heard it. Joe told me That it sounded
exactly like the record when they played it in person.
"even fuller, man. 'Cause we know it better, swingin'
better. We're cookin' on the music. We phrase it like
we improvise it. Everything Is right on the tit!!"
[jazz77]
Zawinul told feather that his management was
skeptical about the title. "who cares about bird or
birdland?" They asked. Zawinul Was adamant: "i
don't care what you say, that's what i want to call it.
And, of course, it was not only a big hit then in the
1970s, but Also when jon hendricks set lyrics to it in
the '80s and manhattan transfer recorded it, they
won the grammy. So now we're in the '90s and it's
on an album [quincy jones' back to the block] that
will sell 10 times as many as all the rest together."
Heavy weather's liner notes give special thanks to
tom oberheim for his polyphonic synthesizer. Tom
oberheim was founder of Oberheim instruments,
and creator of a line of analog synthesizer modules
that were packaged in multi-voice configurations.
"birdland"'s sound was largely due to zawinul's use
of the oberheim eight-voice polyphonic synthesizer,
which was unveiled at the June 1975 national
association of music merchants show. Mark vail, in
his book vintage synthesizers, states that oberheim
was "especially proud" of the way zawinul used a
four voice on "birdland":
Shortly after zawinul had gotten the instrument, tom
paid him a visit. Though he spent the whole evening
with zawinul, explaining in Detail how the
[instrument] worked, tom left convinced that zawinul
didn't understand anything he had said, and that the
new Instrument would be pushed into a corner to
gather dust. Then, about a week later, zawinul
invited oberheim over to hear the rough Mix of
"birdland." Tom remembers being bowled over by
the great big-band sound josef had created on his
four voice. And "birdland" became one of weather
report's biggest hits.
International music & recording world's hugo bruton
caught zawinul and pastorius in a particularly
grumpy mood in 1981. ("interviews Are for what?"
Zawinul asked bruton. And jaco dismissed him at
first, saying, "i don't do interviews. I know i'm the
best.") They did Do the interview of course, and
zawinul told bruton, "i had the line on 'birdland' from
an old song i had never recorded. We did it in The
studio in one take." Indeed, on unofficial recordings
from 1975 and 1976 zawinul repeats the opening
line from "birdland" on his rhodes electric piano as a
sort of intro to "dr. Honoris causa."
Another notable aspect of "birdland" is jaco's use of
false harmonics on the introduction--one of best-
known innovations on the Electric bass. In 1984 bill
milkowski asked jaco about his harmonics
techniques. "for students who want to learn the
basics of Harmonics, all you've got to do is get a
really good violin book and read about flageolet
tones [natural harmonics]. It's been done For years
and years on violins, cellos, etc. All you've got to do
is learn where they're at, spend a lot of time working
on it, and know What they are. If you learn all the
open-string harmonics on a bass--all the natural
harmonics--you can play just about every note
Chromatically. The other way is your picking
technique. Let's say on 'birdland,' for example,
where i pick out that intro part in Harmonics, i get
that sound by using my thumb on my right hand to
lightly touch the string at the octave and picking
behind it, Almost like a steel guitar player would.
You can get harmonics this way; it's just a matter of
subdividing the string. So i play the Note with the left
hand on the fingerboard, holding it down. Then with
my right-hand thumb, i'll be on the note an octave
higher, up Around by the pickup, and pluck the
string with my first and second fingers behind the
thumb. That way you hear the harmonic. It's
Actually very simple. You just have to spend a lot of
time doing it, and you've got to have really good
chops because it hurts your Fingers. You have to
pick it very hard to get it to come out."
The aforementioned bruton tried to get jaco to
explain the same thing, but being in an, um, less
expansive mood, jaco Summarized it for him: "i
invented that shit, man. Ok. You want technique. I'll
tell you quickly. You know how to hit a g in the
Middle on a harmonic to tune up, and you hit a d. If
you put a capo on the same thing will happen.
Halfway you'll get your Harmonic, the fifth, etcetera.
They you pick it another half of the half. Ahh, it's so
goddamn basic, it's mathematics we're talking
About. It's all fractions and shit. Basic." Other
examples of jaco's use of harmonics can be found
on "three views of a Secret" and "port of entry," both
on the night passage album, and on "continuum"
from jaco's debut album.
"birdland" has become something of a fusion era
standard, having been recorded by dozens of artists
ranging in diversity from Snoopy's jazz classiks on
toys (yes, the comic strip characters) to lalo shifrin's
jazz meets sympony collection. The manhattan
transfer Version on their 1979 album extensions,
with lyrics by jon hendricks, won a grammy award.
Zawinul played on quincy jones' version Of
"birdland" on the latter's 1990 album back on the
block, which went platinum and reached the national
top ten chart. "i had just Gotten back from a trip to
japan with the zawinul syndicate," zawinul told
leonard feather, "and found a message that quincy
Jones was looking for me. He needed the exact line;
he had seen lead sheets but wanted to have it
exactly the way i wrote it. He Said, 'hey man i'm
going to record it and i want to use rappers. I'd like
to turn on a lot of young folks, the black kids
especially, Who never saw birdland but need to
know what it represented.'"
This track is also included in the weather report
compilation album this is jazz, vol. 10, and the
various artist compilations classic Jazz funk, vol. 4,
instrumental history of jazz, and ken burns jazz: the
story of america's music.
|
English 
Deutsch 
Italiano 
Español 
Russian 
