BROWN STREET - JOE ZAWINUL
For sheer engagement, live jazz nearly always trumps studio recordings. Yet too often in-concert discs suffer from self-consciousness or pretension. Neither mars Joe Zawinul’s triumphant “Brown Street,” recorded live at his Birdland club in Vienna with his crack quartet augmented by the WDR Big Band. Zawinul re-examines electric jazz-rock classics from his seminal fusion supergroup Weather Report, but it’s the degree by which the band gusts a refreshed exuberance into the 30-year-old tunes that bears praise. Most numbers speed with high-octane locomotion, such as the spirited title track, the funk-inflected “Black Market” and the rollicking “Carnavalito.” But Zawinul and company also swing, especially on the jaunty journey tune “Night Passage.” While brio reigns, one of the highlights is a hushed, moving take on “In a Silent Way,” Zawinul’s gem that Miles Davis famously rendered.(Heads Up International) Billboard
