From the Vaults of Atlantic Records (series)

Rise & Fall of The Third Stream

by Joe Zawinul

Description by OLDIES.com:

This 1968 Vortex release features Zawinul on piano and electric piano, backed by William Fischer on tenor, Jimmy Owens on trumpet, Richard Davis on bass, and either Freddie Waits or Roy McCurdy on drums.

Product Description:

Personnel includes: Joe Zawinul (acoustic & electric pianos); William Fischer (tenor saxophone); Jimmy Owens (trumpet).

Recorded in 1968.

Long before he set the jazz world on its ear with the legendary fusion band Weather Report, Joe Zawinul was featured as pianist and composer for Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis. In 1968, Zawinul recorded THE RISE & FALL OF THE THIRD STREAM for Atlantic. The album was re-released on CD in 1999, and it's great to have it back. The album's title refers to one of the first conscious fusion movements of jazz in the early '60s, a union of jazz and classical music.

With THE RISE & FALL OF THE THIRD STREAM, Zawinul draws equally from European classical music and from the gospel and blues roots of jazz, achieving a virtually perfect balance of the cerebral and the earthy. The instrumentation is unique, as the keyboard/horns/bass/drums band is joined by a string quartet oddly capable of conveying a strong blues feeling. Jimmy Owens contributes sterling trumpet work, and William Fischer (better known as a "classical" composer) plays stark, probing tenor saxophone. If you appreciate both classical music and the blues, the excellent RISE & FALL is for you.