Dialects [Original recording remastered]

Joe Zawinul (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 16, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B000069JIQ
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #272,424 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #74 in Music > World Music > Europe > Continental Europe > Austria

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Joe Zawinul's 1986 Dialects, the keyboard legend's first solo album after 15 years with Weather Report, is worth revisiting. Featuring essentially only Zawinul on a virtual army of synthesizers (with some occasional contributions from Bobby McFerrin and a three-part vocal choir), Dialects is at once an apt summation of the veteran Austrian keyboardist's career-long affinity for synthesizers and an interesting portent of the world-music direction he would take. Although some of the drum-machine grooves here sound a bit dated now, Dialects is heady stuff, right from CD opener "The Harvest," a journey into 1980s techno-funk oriented more toward sonic effect than lyrical content. Other tracks like "Waiting for the Rain" and "6 A.M./Walking on the Nile" more explicitly evoke the world-music sounds Zawinul was to explore with his own Zawinul Syndicate soon after he recorded this album. On these tracks Zawinul mimics a variety of Brazilian and African indigenous instruments with his synths. Although in some ways Dialects resembles the music Herbie Hancock was making in the 1980's--in particular Hancock's 1984 foray into world music/techno funk, Sound System--it's unmistakably the work of its creator, filled with the kind of soulful synthesizer work Zawinul had been creating with Weather Report since the early 1970s. --Ezra Gale

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stircrazy! November 14, 2003

By Andre' S Grindle

Format:Audio CD

This album DROVE ME NUTS when I first listened to it on
headphones!It's loud,synth-drenched world beat music with little to know funk,pop or jazz elements and DON'T let anyone fool you
into thinking it's anything otherwise.Even the SLOW songs punch you out."The Harvest" and "Zeebop" are very rousing numbers but
this will be an aquired taste,even if it is a extremely well
played and performed album by a specacular musician.Check it out
and see what YOU think!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Zawinul proves he is the ambassador of world music July 23, 2002

By "worldmusicexplorer"

Format:Audio CD

Joe Zawinul's self expression of 'dialects of the world' are truly dealt from his personal travels. Almost a solo album Joe expands on his unique rhythms and melodies with the vocal crew from 'Sportin' Life'. Bobby McFerrin's improv's are some of the best of his career. Almost as good as on Andreas'-Cosmopoly. The only thing keeping this effort from getting 5 stars is the very dated sounding drum programming(Dialects was first released in 1986). Joe could have made this as good as 'My People' with the help of a Peter Erskine, Omar Hakim orTrilok Gurtu. Each song, with lots of vocals and no lyrics, weaves the tale of the emotions each people must have experienced in each scenario. Highly recommended.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great solo album December 3, 2006

By Harold Smith

Format:Audio CD

This is Zawinul's solo album; he wrote everything and plays all the instruments. He also gets some assistance from Bobby Mcferrin and a handful of other singers on a few tracks. The liner notes title states, "Music for Solo Synthesizers and Voices". The singers, however stay in the background being part of the whole texture.

I felt unsure about ordering the CD because I was used to him being surrounded by other geniuses; after a few listens I feel this work is at the level of the best Weather Report. The music is all about rythmic texture, loops, grooves, world music and african rythms; it all flows incredibly well and doesn't sound mechanical at all as some people might expect from an all-synth music.

The keyboard work is tremendous. Lest we forget, Zawinul has won the "best keyboardist" in Down Beat 28 times. His biography states that he "...is one of a bare handful of synthesizer players who actually learned how to play the instrument, to make it an expressive, swinging part of his arsenal." This album is the finest example of his mastery.