Josef Erich Zawinul (born July 7, 1932 in Vienna, Austria) is a jazz keyboardist and composer. He is one of a front runners in the development of jazz fusion along with Chick Corea, John McLaughlin and Miles Davis. Better called a founder of the band Weather Report, with Wayne Shorter, he currently heads a ensemble known as a Zawinul Syndicate.

Zawinul, along by having Corea, was one of a number 1 to integrate electrical pianos & early synthesizers like Bob Moog's minimoog into jazz. He is however the large creative person & composer in the jazz community.

In a period of the nine-seasin stint on keyboard sustaining the Cannonball Adderley Quintet, Zawinul wrote the hit "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy." He too composed "Walk Tall" & "Country Preacher," the latter a tribute to U.S. Civil Rights Movement leader Rev. Jesse Jackson. In that title cut to the quintet's popular 1969 album release, Austrian-born Zawinul demonstrated a sophisticated & intimate understanding of the African/African-American concept of cool, of motion and interval. Whenever "Country Preacher" debuted at the survive recording session around Chicago at Jackson's Operation Breadbasket, it elicited enthusiastic cheers of immediate recognition from either a mostly African-Western audience.

In the late 60s Zawinul joined Miles Davis's band and helped produce a healthy of the future Jazz fusion. Among others he played on the album In a Silent Way, a title track of which he composed, & the landmark album Bitches Brew.

Zawinul's large commercial profits come from either his composition Birdland, a Six-microscopic compositiin featured on Weather Report's 1977 album Heavy Weather. Birdland is one of a virtually all recognizable jazz pieces of the '70s, covered by several large creative person from either The Manhattan Transfer to Maynard Ferguson. Possibly Weather Report's version received important mainstream radio airplay — unusual for the children — & served to convert several recently fans to music which it can never use heard otherwise.

Trivia
Zawinul grew higher within Landstraße, Vienna, where he attend school by having a late previous Austrian Federal President Thomas Klestil. Zawinul emigrated to the United States in the late 1950s.

Brian Eno's instrumental "Zawinul/Lava" is known as around his honour.

John McLaughlin's instrumental "Jozy" is as well the tribute to Zawinul.