say it ain't so, joe

Joe Zawinul was one badass mutha. At 70, he could swim a mile, hard. Or outdrink you, glass after glass of that sweet Slivovitz wine he favored. Or kick your ass -- OK, maybe just scare you in to to thinking he would with a single glare.
Or he could sit at a piano and play the most tender ballad you'd ever heard. Or, from behind one of his arsenal of electonic keyboards and synths, create a groove that, as one musician put it, "just entered your body."
But at 75, early this morning in his native Vienna, Austria, Zawinul died after a lingering illness.