Early this June, the Wolkenturm in Grafenegg witnessed the spectacular concert Joe Zawinul’s Music Odyssey. It featured the Zawinul All Star Big Band, the radio.string.quartet and the Zawinul Legacy Band 3.0. Three days prior the Zawinul Legacy Band 3.0 and Tony Zawinul had given a workshop at the ipop.

Joe Zawinul was born in Vienna on 7 July 1932 and grew up not far from the mdw Campus in Vienna’s 3rd district. He eventually came to number among the 20th century’s most influential jazz musicians. And now, the big.mdw.band—the University’s big band at the Department of Popular Music—has taken what would have been Zawinul’s 90th birthday as an opportunity to engage with his music and life’s work in a three-semester concert trilogy.