John Pattitucci

[phunkjam]

Ed, you've got a point there. He's one of the only upright players I've seen. The reason i said that whole "meanest, best" bit is because he is the best I've seen. I'll definately agree that there are better players out there. I've just yet to see them... As for bassists I've heard. Mingus is the top.

[Bruce Lindfield]

As an update - Wayne Shorter played the London Jazz Festival a few days ago with an acoustic quintet that included JP and they got rave reviews from all the press I read. A lot of them mentioned JP's bass playing as being very sympathetic and the interplay between him and Shorter.

Most Jazz gigs don't even rate a mention in the UK press, but this one got detailed reviews in all the "quality" press and those I saw were very favourable - this must be one of the biggest international straight ahead Jazz gigs at the moment and JP jhas got it and is getting well-known - no matter what we may think, he is likely to become the DB player of choice for anything like this and surely we can't affiord to ignore him?

[Bruce Lindfield]

An update on the update!

Last night BBC Knowledge on Satellite Digital TV screened a 90 minute special on the London Jazz Festival - so I actually got to see JP with Wayne Shorter's acoustic quintet - I recorded it as well!

I did like JPs playing ad he seemd to be the dominant contributor behind Shorter - the pianist was Danilo Perez and it was quite funny to see hinm struggling with some really old dog-eared sheet music. Wayne didn't seem to be calling the tunes (it could have been edited out?) just launching into them and the camera was at such on angle on Perez that you could see his piano covered in bits of pieces of hand-written parts. Presumably he was expected to know what tune they had started; but often you saw him shuffling though charts.

JP had all his charts organised carefully, but really didn't seem to be referring to them - presumably he was happy with well-known pieces like JuJu. But the fact that he seemed to know the tunes and was happy with them seemed to give him more confidence about where to take the tunes and I saw one solo where he really seemed to be leading and inspiring the drummer and pianist. Anyway it was really nice to have lots of live Jazz on TV!

[RHFusillo]

At first, I didn't "get" the fuss over Pattitucci. My only exposure to him was with Chick Corea's bands. I never liked those recordings because of what I heard as an emphasis of chops over music.

Around 10 years ago, he came to Houston to play some gigs with pianist Paul English. I got to spend a Saturday afternoon with JP, talking and cooking Italian food. Great person, and he had some interesting comments about his relationship with Chick -- ethnic affinity because they're both Italian, but major religious differences. Still skeptical, I went to the club date that night. The first part of the evening was a set concert of music from Paul's CD. Pattitucci executed his parts perfectly, of course. Later in the evening, the gig developed into more of a raw jazz jam with people sitting in. Oh, Mommy, did Pattitucci play his a** off! And, he had jazz feel up the ying-yang. He dug in perfectly on the straight-ahead stuff, and he responded brilliantly when challenged to a duet by one of the pianists.

Bruce Lindfield pretty much beat me to my closing comment: Wayne Shorter hired him for his first all-acoustic group. Scoreboard!

[Bijoux]

We shouldn't judge an artist by a few recordings, Patitucci has recorded dozens and dozens of albums since the early 80's, we just can't afford to ignore him, maybe 100 years from now after the guy is dead then people go like " oh! wow! so and so was a genius", and then they release somehow even more albums than the guy himself recorded when he was alive, so please tell me who makes all the money?!?
BTW Bruce anyway we can get a copy of tha video , thught I might wanna try anyway.

[Bruce Lindfield]

I'm sure the BBC will be selling the whole piece on to other networks - that's how they make a lot of their money! They have repeated the London Jazz Festival programme - about 3 hours of live Jazz - twice now on their digital channels. I would suggest looking out for this on cable channels that carry "Arts" - type programming.

[Michael Jewels]

I like Patitucci a lot. I'm not saying he's the best, but, if you even compare him to Hinton and Pettiford, that's a compliment right there. Also, John is still young, he'll probably take us to new places as the years progress. Now, the question is: Who do like/think is better, Patiticci or Christian McBride? I like them both, and think that they're two of a kind, just with different ideas.

(Plugging his own here) I started a thread on this topic in Bassists, over in Bass Guitar. Answer here, there, or in both!

Thanks,
Mike J.

In my opinion, these two are as close as you can get in talent. And yes, I have both of their latest CDs.

[Robert Kopec]

How can anyone rag on John?Opinions and tastes aside...The man has played (and will) with some of the Icons of jazz.Their opions and tastes should count for something.....Wayne,Herbie,Chick,Roy and all the others must hear(know) something.How can you rag on the man ? He is truly a gift to the bass,acoustic and electric.

[David Kaczorowski]

As someone who previously stated I just didn't particularly care for Patitucci's playing (though he's obviously great), I recently heard him on something with some pianist that I really dug. So tastes (and maybe players) change!

[Robert Kopec]

It is all about the love...I've had the pleasure of talkin' with him.John has a deep love for the tradition.The man is a class act and brings it to the bandstand every night.It's beautiful when you think about it...

You can't be born a dog and die a cat...