This transitional recording sees Joe Zawinul moving from the role of jazz pianist to that of a synthesist in the broad sense of the word. The recording, made up of advanced hard bop and post bop themes, includes -- with varying degrees of cohesion -- passages for cello and violas. The strings never completely meld with the jazz instrumentation, but they also don't get in the way. The title suggests Zawinul sees little value in partitioning music under such headings as "Third Stream" (a rubric for the fusion of jazz and classical music). This view would be famously exemplified in the influential projects with which Zawinul would soon be involved. Zawinul sticks with acoustic piano except for "Soul of a Village", where he improvises in a soul-jazz vein on Fender Rhodes over the tamboura-like droning of a prepared piano. On other tracks, his playing is similar to the sweeping grandeur of McCoy Tyner. Elsewhere, he is in more of a Keith Jarrett or Bill Evans space. There's good work from Jimmy Owens on trumpet and William Fischer on tenor sax, along with a top-flight rhythm section comprising bassist Richard Davis and either Freddie Waits or Roy McCurdy on drums.What's interesting about this music is the insight it provides on directions Zawinul would soon take with Miles Davis on the ethereal In a Silent Way, on the impressionistic 1971 eponymous release Zawinul, and then with the borderless fusioneering of Weather Report. These later projects are the realization of ideas that Zawinul was beginning to form on this 1967 session. - by Jim Todd, AMG
Recorded in late 1965, while keyboard player Joe Zawinul was still a member of saxophonist Cannonball Adderley's band, Money In The Pocket is a remarkable album—remarkable in that gives absolutely no hint of the shape shifts that would transform Zawinul's work a few years later. The first of three albums he recorded for Atlantic, it's a conventional mix of mid-1960s hard bop and soul jazz. Trumpeter Miles Davis' revolutionary In A Silent Way (CBS), recorded in early 1969, which featured Zawinul (who also wrote the title track), is on another planet, while Weather Report's eponymous debut (CBS, 1971) is in another galaxy. "Money In The Pocket" itself, one of three Zawinul originals here, made with tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan and trumpeter Blue Mitchell, is classic Blue Note hard bop in everything but record label. Four other tracks recorded with a three horn frontline—tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson, baritone saxophonist Pepper Adams and Mitchell, with bassist Sam Jones and drummer Louis Hayes from the Adderley band—take in bop and soul jazz. Jones' "Some More Of Dat" is a generic dead ringer for contemporaneous Adderley or pianist Horace Silver (Mitchell, Jordan, Henderson and Hayes were all Silver alumni). All these tracks are good, but even by the standards of the time they are pretty ordinary. Zawinul's modal-flavored "Riverbed," though hardly radical, is the disc's most singular composition. There are, however, two ballad readings of note: Guy Wood's and Robert Mellin's "My One And Only Love" and Rudy Stephenson's "Sharon's Waltz." The first is performed solo by Zawinul, the second with Jones and Hayes. Lyrical and just the right side of rococo, Zawinul's solos are delightful, in the same ballpark as "Come Sunday," the Zawinul feature with the Adderley band heard on the YouTube clip below. - by Chris May, allaboutjazz.com
Artist: Joe Zawinul
Album: The Rise & Fall ot the Thid Stream / Money in the Pocket
Year: 1967/1966
Label: Rhino (1994)
Runtime: 73:41
Tracks:
1. Baptismal (William Fischer) 7:38
2. The Soul of a Village - Part I (William Fischer) 2:13
3. The Soul of a Village - Part II (William Fischer) 4:15
4. The Fifth Canto (William Fischer) 7:00
5. From Vienna, With Love (Friedrich Gulda) 4:27
6. Lord, Lord, Lord (William Fischer) 3:56
7. A Concerto, Retitled (William Fischer) 5:24
8. Money in the Pocket (Joe Zawinul) 4:47
9. If (Joe Henderson) 3:48
10. My One and Only Love (Guy Wood/Robert Mellin) 3:55
11. Midnight Mood (Joe Zawinul) 6:07
12. Some More of Dat (Sam Jones) 6:03
13. Sharon's Waltz (Rudy Stephenson) 5:08
14. Riverbed (Joe Zawinul) 5:10
15. Del Sasser (Sam Jones) 3:44
Personnel:
Joe Zawinul (Piano, Electric Piano)
William Fischer (Tenor Saxophone) - 1-7
Jimmy Owens (Trumpet) - 1-7
Richard Davis (Double Bass) - 1-7
Alfred Brown (Viola) - 1-7
Selwart Clarke (Viola) - 1-7
Theodore Israel (Viola) - 1-7
Kermit Moore (Cello) - 1-7
Roy McCurdy (Drums) - 1-8
Freddie Waits (Drums) - 1-7
Warren Smith (Percussion) - 1-7
Blue Mitchell (Trumpet) - 8,9,11,12,14
Joe Henderson (Tenor Saxophone) - 9,11,12,14
Pepper Adams (Baritone Saxophone) - 9,11,12,14
Sam Jones (Double Bass) - 9,11-15
Louis Hayes (Drums) - 9,11-15
Bob Cranshaw (Double Bass) - 8
Clifford Brown (Tenor Saxophone) - 8