Faces & Places

Joe Zawinul | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 17, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Esc Records
• ASIN: B00006J3UR
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,172 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Search

2. All About Simon

3. Introduction to Tower of Silence

4. Tower of Silence

5. The Spirit of Julian "C" Adderley

6. Familiar to Me

7. Café Andalusia (A Day in Tunisia)

8. Good Day

9. Barefoot Beauty

10. Rooftops of Vienna

11. Borges Buenos Aires, Pt. 1

12. Borges Buenos Aires, Pt. 2

13. Siseya

14. East 12th Street Band

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Joe Zawinul, at the age of 70, has brought forth an album that continues to celebrate his endless delight in exploring music from around the world. Born in Vienna, he studied at the conservatory there, moving to the United States in 1958 when he received a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He worked in the '60s with a variety of the era's jazz luminaries (Maynard Ferguson, Dinah Washington, Cannonball Adderley) before encountering Miles Davis. The trumpet player's In a Silent Way was named for Zawinul's title track. This led to the formation of Weather Report, the band he co-led with Wayne Shorter for 15 years.

Faces & Places mixes vocalists and instrumentalists with daring grace. "Rooftops of Vienna" is a wistful ode that's tinged with the sweetly sad backward glances of a man growing older and finding his boyhood home darting through his dreams. It uses singers as part of the musical stew, rather than as a narrative component. With its blend of exotic acoustic instruments and contemporary electronics, this set is very much in keeping with the direction of Weather Report from the time of Black Market and beyond. --David Greenberger

Product Description

2002 album from the ex-Weather Report composer and Grammy nominee. ESC.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique take on world jazz, November 26, 2002

By 

Jan P. Dennis "Longboard jazzer" (Monument, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Faces & Places (Audio CD)

I admit that I haven't followed Jow Zawinul's career since the break-up of Weather Report, although I've casually listened to some of his solo albums. I really can't say what prompted me to buy Faces and Places, but an interesting review in a popular jazz magazine probably contributed to my decision.

Let me state my preferences out front: I usually don't like synth-heavy jazz. I usually don't like vocal-oriented jazz. Since this disc is both, what gives? Why do I like it very much? Probably because Zawinul has somehow figured out how to seemlessly intgrate the ungainly (cheesy?) sounds of his synth and the unlikely vocal gymnastics so characteristic to his ethos into heart of the world jazz he so brilliantly purveys.

Take, for example, "The Spirit of Julian 'C' Adderly." It's hard upon first hearing for the listener to discern exactly where the spirit of Cannonball resides in this admittedly attractive afro-jazz piece. Sounds more like Township jazz on uppers to me . . . But then it clicks in. Just as the great altoist evoked the heart of Africa in his heyday, so Zawinul evokes it in this raucaus, joyous number.

Or take "Tower of Silence," perhaps the number that most effectively showcases Zawinul's creative use of synthesizer. One is immediately struck by the deep world-jazz grove of the bass, tablas, and Paco Sery's mesmerizing drums. Somehow his synth stylings fit perfectly into this stew, as do the ecstatic vocalizations. Here, surely, is Zawinul at his finest, everthing cooking, smoothly grooving, but not at all insipid, as in jazz lite. How does he do it?

A highlight for me is "Rooftops of Vienna," a most un-Viennese sounding number, but somehow still evoking a central European esthetic, albeit via some--again--weird-'n'-wild Township vibe.

Not everything works. The straight vocal number, "Familiar to Me," stands out by virtue of its failure to be integretated into the world jazz vibe. And I'd like to hear more of the great guitarist, Amit Chatterjee. But these are quibbles, not worth even subtracting a half-star.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Trademark brilliance, January 5, 2003

By 

LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faces & Places (Audio CD)

This is a great album and when you realize that Zawinul is now 70 years old, it's flabbergasting that he has been able to create music this passionate, warm, and joyous at this age. If we all have half as much energy as Joe does now when we arrive at 70 we will be in great shape indeed.

OK, maybe the music here does not break any new ground--maybe the innovations (which are huge) that Zawinul made previously continue here with no radical changes--but that absolutely does not detract from the genius in abundance here. Listen to the multiple African influences that course through the music and wordless vocals on this record and you'll grin. Listen to the upbeat rhythmic complexities that splash, gyrate, and throb everywhere and you'll tap your feet or clap your hands.

Zawinul's music is, as many have said, world jazz, but he goes far beyond that category; he's a fusionist of the highest order. By fusion here is meant the seamless blending of global, personal, and technical streams--all elements that combine to form the beautiful liquid ever-flowing entity that music is. Practically nobody does this better than Joe Zawinul.

While not as varied as My People, this is nevertheless a terrific piece of work that I, for one, am proud to have in my CD library.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Familiar "Faces & Places" Unfortunately, December 28, 2007

By 

Robert Greiveldinger (Milwaukee, WI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Faces & Places (Audio CD)

The main problem with Joe Zawinul's "Faces & Places" is that, in an attempt to collect all of his diverse 'global music' ideas under one big tent, the whole thing ends up a bland sonic hodgepodge that says nothing we haven't already heard before, and better, on his previous collections.

What 'Faces & Places' delivers largely consists of dense, dance-style beats overlayed with Joe's poppy, bubbly, lyrical synths, and some attempt at 'exotic' instrumentation to give it a 'world music' vibe.

Unfortunately with this cd, all the "Faces & Places" are tired, plainly familiar and no longer fresh; we've heard from all these folks before. Zawinal intersperces scat singing and vocal samples throughout the disk, with the exception of the mid-album 'Familiar To Me', a horrid, cheezy song with full vocals and lyrics, and which sounds like a smooth jazz reject. Terrible writing, terrible idea. This is probably someone's sad attempt to get radio play for this cd, but hearing it hurts more than scratching a pimple in your ear canal, serving only to irritatingly break-up the monotony of this otherwise bland collection.

Don't get me wrong: I have avidly listened to and respected Mr. Zawinul's career since his days with Miles Davis and, later, Wayne Shorter and Weather Report, producing music that, as Duke Ellington praised it, is "Beyond Category".

But "Faces & Places" will not be part of that descriptive canon.
I think it is no co-incidence that this cd is (as far as I am aware) is currently out of print.