Zawinul parts

[bg]

I've been curious about Joe Zawinul's solo on "River People" since I first heard it in 1978. I thought his imitation of a sax was uncanny, and lately I've been trying to figure out how he did it. If you want to refresh your memory you can download the mp3 excerpt and a pdf transcription of the solo here.

 

One of things I discovered is Zawinul does not use the pitchbend wheel at all in this solo. Instead, he uses the mod wheel for a slow LFO vibrato. He adds it on some sustained notes for traditional vibrato, but elsewhere he applies just a touch of the mod wheel to blur the pitch center of fast notes. I think this is key in how he makes some lines sound so human.

 

I believe the solo is played on a Prophet, and the "patch" sounds so simple. I hear one osc with no noticeable VCF or VCA envelope. It sounds like the only finesse was in dialing in the right pulse width for the reed tone. Everything else is just him hitting the right notes at the right time.

 

I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

 

Bart Garratt

[orangefunk]

Yeah its a great sound and solo..

 

On the montruex 76 concert they play a precursor to RIver People.. very similar bassline incredibly funky... in fact the earlier version is a lot better IMO

[DafDuc]

When did Zawinul start using the Prophets? His earlier stuff was on a 2600 --- talk about a human sound...

[burningbusch]

Bart, 1978 seems a little early for a recorded Prophet solo. The P5 was introduced at the 1978 NAMM show and I'm quite sure Joe had an early one, but still that's a lot of things coming together.

 

It sounds like the 2600 to me.

 

Busch.

[bg]

Just checked the Mr. Gone credits. River People says "Josef Zawinul, keyboards, ARP and Prophet solo."

[Dan South]

Zawinul might have received a prototype Prophet 5 from Dave Smith. Maybe Dave Bryce could verify this?

[Synthguy]

The sawtooth is the most used waveform in synthesis, but rectangles are your friend too. Rectangle and pulse waves are all over that track, and as you can hear are really cool. Those of you with only a rompler, except for Kurzweils, are missing out on some marvelous sonic possibilities. You really should get a VA, real A, or a soft synth and roll up your sleeves. Heck, there are at least a couple of downloadables you can find here on the board. I've been spending the afternoon with the Nord Modular G2 demo and having a blast.

 

Joe Zawinul is telling you the truth.

[burningbusch]

Bart, thanks for the info. I still think it's the 2600 largely because of the modulation. The 2600 had delayed vibrato and that to me sounds more like what's going on with the patch than a mod wheel. The modulation applied sounds always to be the same amount, which is difficult to do with a mod wheel. And with the 2600 delayed vibrato, once it kicks in it will stay on during legato playing. Joe wasn't much into left hand wheels and knobs as he ALWAYS was play something with his left hand--at least live. And he always tried to do things in the studio that he could reproduce live.

 

Also, the simplicity of the patch seems to me to indicate the 2600. You could bring this up quite easily without patch cords-single osc, basic filter and envelope.

 

Not that you couldn't create a similar patch on something like the P5.

 

Busch.

[JeffLearman]

Zawinul was always a master at using subtle pitch alteration to avoid sounding mechanical. A small amount of LFO on pitch is one technique; another was a very small amount of envelop applied to pitch (and usually a different envelope than the filter envelope, so it sounded less "synchronized").

 

I remember starting to use my SCI 6-trak, which had lovely sounding DCOs and filters -- only to find that the smallest increment/decrement in pitch was WAY too much to play Zawinul tricks. (Other than that, a lovely sounding little synth when tuned up a day ahead and used in unison mode.)

 

Amazing the amount of life Zawinul could breathe into a solo without even having a velocity sensitive keyboard. One of my big heros.

 

Of course, the most important part of a convincing solo when using a synth to imitate a real instrument is playing licks the way a player on that instrument would, and this solo is a good example. Anyone notice just a little Shorter influence there? The accuracy of the patch is secondary, as long as it's musical enough to suit the purpose.

[bg]

Bill, very interesting about the 2600. You may be right. I love this kind of discussion. The other thing that hit me about the solo when transcribing it is how un-idiomatic it is to the keyboard. I'm not a reed player, so I can only guess that these type of phrases are natural on a sax. But they sure don't fit under my hand. All the more reason to admire Zawinul's thinking.

 

Another aspect is his time. Some of his note placements are so loose I couldn't tell what he meant, transcription-wise. But it's part of how he makes it sound like a wind instrument.

 

-bart

[bg]

learjeff, didn't see your post while writing mine. Right on.

[SoundMeister]

Hi Bart,

 

If you still have your Kurzweil ....

 

Keymap select #153 (very dull saw)

Algorithm select #9

Module 1: Set Distortion to -33dB

Module 2: Set Shaper to .225 (or less)

Module 3: Set LPGate adjust to G#6_1661Hz

On the AMP1 page, set Att1 rate to about .05 (just enough to soften the attack a little) and the Release 1 rate to about .15

 

On the audio track it sounds like Joe is using a pretty sluggish LFO for his expression vibrato. On the Kurz 4.00-4.50 sounds a little more natural to me. Of course you can use whatever speed you want. Assign it on the Pitch page: MinDpt= 4 ct and MaxDpt= 44 ct. If you want to, you could have a separate LFO for the expression vibrato. Up to you.

 

If you assign a slider to the Shaper adjustment, you can control the amount of reediness very easily and create new timbres that are not particularly "Zawiny," but useful nevertheless.

 

Now maybe add a little reverb and chorus ...

 

Btw, I saw Joe live with Weather Report, which was great. I love the stuff he has done since with the Zawinul Syndicate.

 

Best wishes for the new year!

 

~Peter Schouten

Pyramid Sound Productions

[bg]

Cool! Thank you, Peter. I'll try it.

[bg]

BTW, there's a good transcription of the bass part here.

[JeffLearman]

Great minds think alike! (Or perhaps, even two blind squirrels find the same nut now and then?)

 

Oddly, the one time I saw Z live, his performance was disappointing, though the band sounded great overall. There was a nasty buzz in his monitor that we could hear even in the seats -- I saw him trying to work it out with the sound guys at the start of the show but it continued throughout. So, I don't blame him for not being at the top of his game that night. He still did some amazing playing, but you could tell that his heart wasn't really in it and that he was annoyed. I would be too! But the proof of a pro is how they can handle it when thrown a curve like that.

 

And while I say his performance was disappointing, it was only so to me because my expectations were so high. The musicians I went with didn't notice anything wrong. Trust me though, Z was irked.

[DafDuc]

Same with my only WR concert - Royal Oak Music Theater, ca. 1978. HUGE noise issues - they tried to solve it with a couple of noise gates, but it was still really obvious.

 

I'm thinking Ralphe Armstrong was on that tour? Pair of Acoustic 360's? I know I saw him play that rig in that theater, and I can't think of any other shows I saw there. Not sure about Joe's gear, or who was drumming, though I imagine I knew at the time.

 

I *DO* remember the opening though: Joe on the in-house Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ - which was on a lift - rising from a smoke machine cloud. Very cool...

[DJDM]

Originally posted by bg:

I thought his imitation of a sax was uncanny,

Hey Bart,

I think "uncanny" is a stretch. It does sound very cool and is well played (obviously) but nothing like a real sax.

[bg]

Lance, I take your point. But I looked up uncanny, and its meaning is different than I thought. From m-w.com: "seeming to have a supernatural character or origin : EERIE, MYSTERIOUS."

 

I agree with you the solo doesn't sound like a real sax, but his power of suggestion is eerie.

 

I'm going to need your ears for the next example.

[bg]

Also from Mr. Gone, here are three solos in "Young And Fine." The synth sound and approach in Solo1 and Solo2 are similiar to "River People." But there are still performance nuances I do not understand. I'll point out a couple later. First, I have to ask, what is the instrument in Solo3? Is it a wind instrument or a synthesizer?

[marino]

Originally posted by Dan South:

Zawinul might have received a prototype Prophet 5 from Dave Smith. Maybe Dave Bryce could verify this?

IIRC, Joe got one of the first Prophet-10s - a 10-voice Prophet in a single-manual, P-5-like package. Those were discontinued almost immediately, because they would tend to overheat and the tuning would go berserk. Zawinul was offered a new 10-voice, with the big casing and the double manual, but he opted for the slim, lighter Prophet-5 rev1. Later, he added a second Prophet-5 with the newer chipset and more memory.

[JeffLearman]

Daf, ROMT was one of my favorite places to see an act like that back when I lived in Michigan -- the acoustics were perfect. So many theaters are too live for an amplified act, but that one is just right. Might have been a disappointment when it was first built, for acoustic acts. I've never heard the Wurlitzer there, that must have been a treat!

 

I've seen a lot of great acts at Hill Auditorium in AA that would have sounded a lot better at ROMT because Hill was just too lively. For example, WR, George Benson, and Tom Waits.

[Krakit]

I don't listen to nearly enough Weather Report since I got married 10 years ago. My wife isn't a fan.

 

I need to hit my old Mahavishnu Orchestra disks a bit harder too.

 

Carl

[bg]

Yeah, "Birds Of Fire" will put you right.

[bg]

Originally posted by bg:

what is the instrument in Solo3? Is it a wind instrument or a synthesizer?

I'm serious, I don't know.

[orangefunk]

Originally posted by bg:

Originally posted by bg:

what is the instrument in Solo3? Is it a wind instrument or a synthesizer?

I'm serious, I don't know.

Sounds like an Arp 2600 to me.. he had similar sounds on the MOntreux 76 video

 

http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/loughran/temp/jz2.jpg

[bg]

Regarding the 3rd solo on "Young And Fine," I didn't know it was a 2600, but always assumed it was a synth. But there's a couple things he does that make me question this. On YAF_solo3.mp3 listen to the gesture at 0:32. I don't have the slightest idea how he does that.

[Jazz+]

Did Shorter play any wind synth solos (EWI)? He's not credited with such.

Solo #3 makes me wonder for a second ...

Joe did a good job of playing like Shorter's phrasing on that clip.

[cnegrad]

Sorry to take this topic on a left turn, but have y'all heard the Steps Ahead live version of "Yound & Fine"? It's killer!

[Jazz+]

Why didn't Joe every use a Mini Moog for soloing???

I always preferred its sound over my ARP 2600 and the Prophet. The Moog sounded warmer and fatter to me.

[platypus]

One of the all-time classic synthesizers. The 2600 was a three-oscillator synthesizer, meaning it was capable of producing three tones simultaneously. According to Arp's advertising literature, Zawinul began playing the 2600 in 1971; Sweetnighter was the first record on which he used the instrument. Zawinul owned two 2600s, each of which had a different sonic character, as he explained in an Arp ad:

 

"I want orchestral sounds from a synthesizer, the kind of realism beyond imitation. I can make the 2600 sound like Coltrane, just like Coltrane...or change it to soft, haunting flutes. My first 2600, 'Eins,' is my soft synthesizer, with a clear, clean sound I have never heard on any other. 'Zwei,' my second 2600, gives me a harder edge, so they are complementary."

 

At the time the Mini Moog was a popular synthesizer, and in a 1975 interview Zawinul explained why he liked the 2600s better than the Moog: "I like the Arp because of what I can do with it. I hear the Moog, it's immediately the Moog. With the Arp I can do things that will fool the heck out of you. I can hide between voices, I can do all kinds of things. To me it's a much more natural sound. The variety of colors is greater, too. Woodwind sounds... if you have the right hearing, you can really get it. But it takes time and work--like if you've got the coordination of a fighter, getting those combinations together--it's the same here, you get your moves together so that you can perform with it."

 

Zawinul sometimes inverted the keyboard of one of his 2600s, which he described as "playing upside down with my right hand, while I play rightside up chords with my left hand. It's a real head trip." They were also capable of being coupled together, permitting six-oscillator chords as Zawinul used on the Mysterious Traveller track "Scarlet Woman."

 

Zawinul toured the world with his 2600s and used them extensively on Mysterious Traveller, Tale Spinnin', Black Market,and Heavy Weather. (The "Birdland" intro was played on the 2600s.) "I have my own 'magic book' of sounds I've created on the 2600," Zawinul said. "Melody lines from 'Black Market,' 'Scarlet Woman,' and lots of music and sound effects from other albums I've done."

 

It's worth noting that these instruments had no presets--that is, no way of remembering the settings for a particular sound. Each sound had to be recreated by moving a series of sliders and reconfiguring patch cables.

From Zawinul Online

 

He explains his 2600s and why he favors them.