Dialects
Joe Zawinul's 1986Dialects, the keyboard legend's first solo album after 15 years withWeather Report, is worth revisiting. Featuring essentially only Zawinul on a virtual army of synthesizers (with some occasional  contributions fromBobby McFerrinand a three-part  vocal choir),Dialectsis at once an apt summation of the veteran Austrian  keyboardist's career-long affinity for synthesizers and an interesting  portent of the world-music direction he would take. Although  some of the drum-machine grooves here sound a bit dated now,Dialectsis  heady stuff, right from CD opener "The Harvest," a journey into 1980s  techno-funk oriented more toward sonic  effect than lyrical content. Other tracks like "Waiting for the Rain" and  "6 A.M./Walking on the Nile" more explicitly evoke the world-music sounds  Zawinul was to explore with his own Zawinul Syndicate soon after he  recorded this album. On these tracks Zawinul mimics a variety of Brazilian and  African indigenous instruments with his synths. Although in some waysDialectsresembles the musicHerbie Hancockwas making in the 1980's--in  particular Hancock's 1984 foray into world music/techno funk,Sound System--it's unmistakably the work of its creator, filled with the kind of  soulful synthesizer work Zawinul had been creating with Weather Report  since the early 1970s.--Ezra Gale