Jaco Pastorius's Ability2...

[jackotheclown]

Hey people.

Does anyone know (perferrably Jaco fans) answers the any of the following:

How did Jaco discover harmonics?
How did Jaco have so much endurance?
What are the contrasts between playing
styles when jaco is compared to one of
his predecessors.

Thanks guys!

P.S. I have posted another thread about Jaco Pastorius's technical abilty asking has it been supassed by players today please check it out.

Jaco Pastorius's Ability

[beggar98]

First of all, expect this thread to devolve into Jaco bashing vs. Jaco praising.

Second, as a huge Jaco fan, I'll try to touch on your questions:

1. Jaco didn't "discover" harmonics. They'd been around for centuries, long before the invention of the electric bass. What Jaco did do was employ harmonics in a way that hadn't been done before, most notably in "Portrait of Tracy". He deserves a lot of credit for this, but the belief that he "invented harmonics" is a myth.

2. Like with anything else, endurance comes from repetition. Marathon runners don't start out going 26 miles. First you run a mile a day, until that becomes easy. Then you run 2 miles a day, then 3, 4, 5...until you're running marathons.

3. As far as comparing Jaco to his predecessors, that gets tricky because Jaco covered a lot of different styles. He drew from a lot of R&B bass players for his funkier lines, horn players for his solos and was influenced heavily by Caribbean music as well as rock n' roll. I think a big part of his success was being the right player at the right time. As jazz was opening up to rock and funk and r&b a player like Jaco was a perfect fit. He had already distilled all those varying influences into his unique style, and I think that coupled with amazing technique allowed him to make the mark he did.

Hope that helps. I'll check out your other thread as well.

[Otso]

Originally Posted by beggar98

1. What Jaco did do was employ harmonics in a way that hadn't been done before, most notably in "Portrait of Tracy".

Using harmonics for melodies was nothing new either, there are many violin pieces (Paganini "I Palpiti" for example) with melodies entirely played with harmonics.

I'd say the expressiveness of Jaco's playing was what really made him great.

[Rano Bass]

His endurance came from hours and years of playing, nothing else.

[fretless Bob]

if you watch Modern electric bass, his instructional vid, he says that he got his indurance from playing 6 gigs a night 6 days a week. im not sure if thats an exageration but it cant be far off, he also had to of practised non stop, in his biography lots of friends talks about him sleeping like 5 hours a night and when he was awak he would either practise or be gigging.

as for harmonics he also said he just saw a buddt tuning his guitar with harmonics, played the 5th fret harmonics on all 4 strings, realised it was a chord from an Alfred Hitchcock movie and took it from there.

i cant really say about the impact he had over his predecessors but you could even look at players that are around today, and how much better he was than the majority of people you hear anywhere.


Dave

[MammaryVest]

Spam you

[Yngwie 4String]

I wrote a Jaco paper for my Jazz final. My Jazz teacher went to the same school Jaco taught at. I got an A on the paper. I focused my paper more on his life than his technique though. What I found out was that Jaco is important not so much because of his skill (Although he was damn good, the best at the instrument during his time), but because he pioneered several techniques on the electric bass. Jaco was all about pushing the limits and doing all kinds of wacky experimentations. Its his pioneering, not his skill that makes him iconic.

Side note: its interesting that he made a fretless bass out ofg one that had frets. Jaco viewed frets as a "speed bump" so he took out the frets and filled them in with wood filler.

[The BurgerMeister]

Jaco didn't discover harmonics... physics did.

[beggar98]

Originally Posted by Otso

Using harmonics for melodies was nothing new either, there are many violin pieces (Paganini "I Palpiti" for example) with melodies entirely played with harmonics.

I'd say the expressiveness of Jaco's playing was what really made him great.

My classical knowledge is not very deep at all. Do those Paganini pieces have the violin playing just the harmonics, or the full chords like in "Portrait"?

[Otso]

"I Palpiti" has harmonic doublestops. Playing more than 2 notes at the same time on a violin (at least on with a modern seup) is kind of tricky.

[Bruce Lindfield]

"The Rite of Spring" by Stavinsky has a lot of harmonics in the strings - including full chords!

Jaco is known to be a fan of this piece and quotes it in his solo on Havona!

This is the kind of thing that marked Jaco out - so taking ideas from contemporary classical music, film scores etc.

Creating a solo vocabulary for electric bass that hadn't been explored before!

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by jackotheclown

Hey people.

Does anyone know (perferrably Jaco fans) answers the any of the following:

How did Jaco discover harmonics?
How did Jaco have so much endurance?

Jaco said in an interview that he had heard many bass players use harmonics for tuning and he thought it sounded cool - like music! - and so he decided to explore these more.

Jaco played all day and all night - that's how he got his endurance - practicing, playing gigs every night and then going on to all-night jam sessions etc etc.

[Spider Exo]

Thank-you Bruce, reading through this I was about to shoot everyone; Jacko' meant 'how did Jaco learn about harmonics', not that he invented them or something, look at discover in context -- think a bit deeper before you comment people.

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

"The Rite of Spring" by Stavinsky has a lot of harmonics in the strings - including full chords!

Jaco is known to be a fan of this piece and quotes it in his solo on Havona!

This is the kind of thing that marked Jaco out - so taking ideas from contemporary classical music, film scores etc.

Creating a solo vocabulary for electric bass that hadn't been explored before!

Many people forget Jaco was very into arranging. Many of his solos he worked on away from the stage like arrangements and this is common among many famous soloist. Not that they played pre-arranged solos, but they had a framework that they had explored repeatly to find as many way to naviage as they could.

[Audiophage]

Originally Posted by jetpackbassist

Jaco didn't discover harmonics... physics did.

Wow, I was literally going to say that exact same thing.