Zawinul Syndicate Archives

The Zawinul Syndicate performed at the Munich Philharmonie in Germany in 1989. Featuring Scott Henderson on guitar, Gerald Veasley on bass, Cornell Rochester on drums, Bill Summers on percussion, and Leata Galloway and Carl Anderson on background vocals, here’s the group performing “Carnavalito”. The tune originally recorded on the album. If you like that, check out the version we shared...

When we interviewed Gerald Veasley in 2011, he spoke a lot about his time playing music with the late great Joe Zawinul in the Zawinul Syndicate. That’s some great reading, if you want to check that out after this video. Gerald was Zawinul’s longest tenured bassist, which should say a lot. Zawinul prided himself in picking only the great bassists...

Former Weather Report and Zawinul Syndicate percussionist Manolo Badrena recommended this video some time ago, and we forgot about it until today. This is the Syndicate lineup featuring bassist Linley Marthe, performing “Tower of Silence”. It starts out with just keyboards, then guitar and voice before the band kicks in (around the 3 minute mark). And boy do they kick...

Joe Zawinul’s track record of picking bassists was pretty unmatched. Here’s the Syndicate performing the Weather Report tune “Corner Pocket”, with Gerald Veasley getting the crowd going, slapping, rapping and dancing.

Here’s a live performance, recorded for German television in 1989, featuring the Zawinul Syndicate with Scott Henderson on guitar, Gerald Veasley on bass, Cornell Rochester on drums, Bill Summers on percussion, and of course, the great Joe Zawinul on keyboards. The tune is “March of the Lost Children” from the Syndicate’s first release, The Immigrants in 1988.

Here’s a video performance from the 1996 Hamburg Jazz fest, featuring Joe Zawinul’s band with Richard Bona on bass, Amit Chatterjee on guitar, Mokhtar Samba on drums and Abdou Mboup and percussion. Zawinul was promoting his just-released My People album.

The Zawinul Syndicate’s performance at the North Sea Jazz festival in 1997 included Richard Bona on bass, and all of the videos I’ve seen from that performance have been stellar. This live performance of “Carnavalito”, originally recorded on the album, features Zawinul’s Weather Report bandmate Manolo Badrena on percussion and vocals, with newcomers Paco Sery on drums and Gary Poulson...

Here we’ve got a great solo by Linley Marthe, during a performance with The Zawinul Syndicate at New Morning in Paris. You can also catch Marthe playing on Hadrien Feraud’s solo album.

Right up until the end of his life, Joe Zawinul could still bring it (and pick bass players). Check out the Zawinul Syndicate’s version of Weather Report’s “Fast City”, a tune originally recorded for the Jaco Pastorius-era Night Passage album. Bassist Linley Marthe is a monster on this one. This clip comes from the Syndicate’s “75th” DVD. I was lucky...