After a classical training at the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied violin and piano, his curiosity led him to try out a whole range of instruments, especially as he didn't have a piano at home. After the Second World War and a forced exile in Czechoslovakia, he travels to Munich one evening, and a moment as magical as it was unexpected occurs when the JATP orchestra gives a performance in the German city. Lester Young was on stage, and the still-young J. Zawinul was in the audience. Until the end of the '50s, determined to become a professional musician, he played all types of instruments in contexts as varied as balls, clubs and military bases. The Austrian pianist Friedrich Gulda, who had already heard him, offered him a contract to work with broadcasting. At the end of the '50s, he began to take an interest in synthesizers, and formed several groups of which he was the leader. Financial aid enabled him to fly to the United States and study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. After making a name for himself at the school, he was asked to replace the pianist in the trio accompanying Ella Fitzgerald. Following this performance, he joined Maynard Ferguson's band on the recommendation of one of the trio's members, and Miles Davis met him one night when he was accompanying another great singer, Dinah Washington. The trumpeter offered him a contract in his band, but in order to stay with the singer, Joe Zawinul did not respond favorably to this opportunity, which few musicians would have turned down. In 1967, he recorded the legendary album Mercy, Mercy, Mercy with Julian Cannonball Adderley. Over the course of the 60s, he took part in a large number of recordings that went on to become jazz staples, and finally accepted a new proposal from Miles Davis, with whom he distinguished himself as both performer and composer. In the early 70s, Joe Zawinul founded the group Weather Report with saxophonist Wayne Shorter, a musician with whom he had already played several times in previous years. This seminal group of electric jazz from the 70s and 80s disbanded in 1985. Nevertheless, he continued his international career, often leading avant-garde projects ranging from duos to full orchestras. At the end of the '80s, he re-established a large band project which, among other things, prefigured the advent of World Music under the banner of the Zawinul Syndicate.
