had my goodbye with josef today

was in a garage alone, mostly in the sun — drinking beers, eating chips, and doing the iPod shuffle. a weather report tune came up — a later released, semi-obscure alternate version of "Rumba Mama", the first shot of which was off Heavy Weather. at the end, my mind automatically filled in the opening notes to "Palladium", the track i've heard follow Rumba Mama since i was a high school punk. "damn", i thought, "i need to navigate on over to Palladium and blast that proper." just then, my iPod program director pulled up "Social Call", from ernestine anderson's self-titled album. well fuck it; no reason to turn off ernestine and the big band boys, especially when they're playing one of my favorite classics (which i first heard and loved done by my honey betty carter on this album). the WR fellas would have to wait while i danced around like a geek to ernestine. was in a good mood, livin' lahhhhhhge.

couple of tunes later, i finally worked it on over to weather report and what is probably among the top 5 electric piano tracks of all time. Palladium was such a happy meld of joe zawinul, wayne shorter, new guy jaco pastorius (now fully on board for his first complete WR album), and the killer percussion duo of badass alex acuna and wild man manolo badrena. zawinul punches these unmatched deliciously chunky rhodes chords like a boxer set on "strike without warning" (which he was). that song influenced my big band playing like nothing else when i was in high school. was jamming steady today, grooving to the soul brother heroes from my childhood. if i had to pick musicians/artists i have a soul connection to, zawinul's probably in the top slot, though it's a waste to list it like that. i'll just say he's been an unsurpassed, very notable part of my life.

near the end of the song, they head into the final slot, and i reach my hand out in the air, doing one cycle early the solo that zawinul's about to unleash via one of his ARP 2600s. the earbuds are blastin', and i think how in the pocket my fingers naturally move, playing zawinul like i just had a zawinul transfusion or something. i can hear it. this kicks ass!

that moment and those thoughts lasted about 10 seconds, until the forgotten memory of a recent event reached up to grab me. i dropped my arm, leaned against a cabinet, and broke down crying — from psyched to shattered in half a measure. couldn't even see. my brother joe zawinul, whose power and spirit i enjoyed since i first had any awareness how far such things could go, is no longer. though he died on 11 september, it didn't hit me in the chest until this afternoon, no prior notice. man, do i miss that motherfucker like i can't even express. crazy place this world is, bringing in singular giants and then sending them away. anybody understand it?

Labels: music, weather report

posted by saltypig @ 17:45