Piano Sheets > Joe Zawinul Sheet Music > Birdland (ver. 1) Piano Sheet

Birdland (ver. 1) by Joe Zawinul - Piano Sheets and Free Sheet Music

  
About the Song
   Other avaliable versions of this music sheet: Version 1  Version 2  
"Birdland" is a jazz instrumental composition by keyboardist Joe Zawinul that debuted on the Weather Report album Heavy Weather in 1977. A jazz-fusion piece, it achieved unusual commercial success and became a jazz standard, entering the repertoire of many groups and bands, including Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson's big band, and The Manhattan Transfer, who recorded a vocalese take on the tune with lyrics by Jon Hendricks. An uptempo version (with a slight rap introduction) appears on Quincy Jones' 1989 album Back on the Block, with vocals by Kool Moe Dee, Big Daddy Kane, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan. The original version is easily recognized by an artificial harmonic intro played by bassist Jaco Pastorius. "Birdland" was named after the New York jazz club Birdland on 52nd Street, which in turn was named after jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker, nicknamed "Bird". The song is a tribute to Parker.    Download this sheet!
About the Artist
Josef Erich Zawinul (July 7, 1932 – September 11, 2007)[1] was an Austrian jazz keyboardist and composer. First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with elements of rock and world music. Later, Zawinul co-founded the groups Weather Report and the world fusion music oriented Zawinul Syndicate. Additionally, he made pioneering use of electric piano and synthesizers. Zawinul won the "Best Keyboardist" award 30 times from American jazz magazine Down Beat's critics' poll.[2] Several artists have honored Zawinul with songs, notably Brian Eno's instrumental "Zawinul/Lava", John McLaughlin's instrumental "Jozy", Warren Cuccurullo's "Hey Zawinul", Bob Baldwin's "Joe Zawinul", and Biréli Lagrène's instrumental "Josef". Zawinul's playing style is often dominated by quirky melodic improvisations - both bebop, ethnic and pop sounding - combined with sparse but rhythmic playing of big-band sounding chords or bass lines. In Weather Report, he often employed a vocoder as well as.
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