Joe Zawinul, the incredible keyboard wizard, is an almost yearly presence at the festival. At the beginning of the 60's, during his stay in Cannonball Adderley's band, the man from Austria introduced the electric piano into jazz. After that, he and Miles Davis, and later Wayne Shorter in Weather Report, transformed fusion into a respectable music style that today still is an inspiration to a young generation of musicians. With the Zawinul Syndicate he was also leading the way to new territories. Today it's very common that jazz is influenced by world music, but it was Zawinul and his band who paved the way to many ethnical music styles. However he never lost sight of the tradition. Zawinul is one of the few, if not the only jazz musician who pledged allegiance to the electric keyboard and the synthesizer. Beside this all: few people are aware of the fact that he's the owner of a jazz club in Vienna.
