The Death Notice from Downbeat magazine of Joe Zawinul:

Keyboardist Joe Zawinul, who played with Miles Davis and won wide acclaim for his work with Weather Report, died Tuesday morning in an Austrian hospital, the Associated Press has reported. He was 75. Zawinul died from a form of skin cancer called Merkel cell carcinoma, according to a statement from his record label, Heads Up. He had been hospitalized in his native Austria since last month. Zawinul was on the cutting edge of the electric jazz movement, playing with Davis on pioneering albums Bitches Brew and Live-Evil, among others. Along with Wayne Shorter, he founded Weather Report in 1971. The group became the definitive jazz fusion outfit, reaching extraordinary heights in popularity and charting new territory in jazz with the use of synthesizers and electric piano. Zawinul's other accolades include a Grammy Award for his composition "Mercy, Mercy, Mercy," which he played with Cannonball Adderly during the 1960s, and praise for such later groups as the Zawinul Syndicate, his post-Weather Report combo. This past spring, Zawinul toured Europe to mark the 20th anniversary of the Zawinul Syndicate. He sought medical attention when the tour ended. Zawinul's wife, Maxine, had died earlier this year. He is survived by his sons Eric, Ivan and Anthony.

To mark the passing of keyboardist, composer Joe Zawinul, this video performance from YouTube. Joe is with his band Weather Report and the chart is Birdland which he wrote. See also the other links on the page to performances. I especially recommend the joint Weather Report, Manhattan Transfer version of Birdland.

Powerline has this memorial.

Here is an early Weather Report performance from 1971.

Here is the Joe Zawinul Syndicate performing in Paris, 2002. Joe had been into world music for30 years by this time.

Biography.

Joe Zawinul belongs in a category unto himself — a European from the heartland of the classical music tradition (Vienna) who learned to swing as freely as any American jazzer, and whose appetite for growth and change remains insatiable. Zawinul's curiosity and openness to all kinds of sounds made him one of the driving forces behind the electronic jazz-rock revolution of the late '60s and '70s — and later, he would be almost alone in exploring fusions between jazz-rock and ethnic music from all over the globe.