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could you please sell me on Jaco?
- Thread starter Rumbledore
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If, after listening to Jaco, you require arguments to persuade you, it's not worth the while to provide you with the arguments.
There is a difference between not liking Jaco and not respecting his playing and his contribution to the evolution of the electric bass. There is nothing wrong with not liking him, but being disrespectful is just showing ignorance.
+1
Didn't we just have this same nonsense with Lemmy? You don't like him? Listen to one of the other 10,000,000 bass players out there that you do like.
A huge amount is generational. Every 14 year old guitar player can play Purple Haze, but no one did it before Jimi. Same with Jaco (Except I STILL can't do the first few bars of Teen Town!! And I'm pushing 60!!! Dammit!). Victor Wooten recorded a tune (can't remember the title at the moment)as a tribute to great bass players - and one of the lines was "The bassplayer used to be the one standing in the back - When Jaco first played Donna Lee, he sure changed that." I distinctly remember the first time I heard Donna Lee on the radio. It was a game changer. Just like the first time I heard "Stomp!"
Still sounds like a lot of frog farts to me.
It's generally a lot more difficult to be the first to do something.
It's not going to happen. 126 posts in and no further comment from the OP? Troll. I will ignore him now.
I doubt any one can give you an argument that would change your mind, and I personally don't care whether you change your mind or not, if you can't hear it yourself then that's cool with me. Stupefying, but cool. If you are serious about not getting it, I invite you to learn some of his basslines, and get honest feedback from experienced bass players on how you did. You can learn something "paint by numbers" and completely miss the nuance of timing and dynamics though, so even if you get your fingers in the right places at more or less the right times, don't get cocky. Craftsmanship is in the framework, artistry is in the details and the overall picture.
Jaco simultaneously played the traditional role of the bass, that is providing rhythmic weight to the harmony, as well as playing melody. Birdland is a good example of this. This was groundbreaking for many bass players, who in Jazz typically played walking quarter note lines with occasional improvised heads, or to rock players who although had McCartney, Entwhistle, Jones, etc for inspiration with the "rhythmic weight to the harmony" role, really had no one but guitar players like Hendrix and Clapton to emulate or follow, so typically just stood back "in their place" beside the high hat. Jaco shows how bass can be integral to the melody as well as the rhythm and the harmony. He also has some damned tasty grooves, for example "Barbary Coast" and "The Chicken". His timing is perfect, his sense of phrasing is saucy and audacious, his tone disregards the generations of upright players without disrespecting them. You can tell he is hearing the entire arrangement when he is playing and he always, *always* served the groove as well as the harmony.
The thing about Jaco is that he was an outside the box jazz improviser that happened to play bass.
If you don't like outside the box jazzers--you will never like Jaco.
As a jazzer myself--he was was awesome at improvising. He did decline in his fluidity as he got more manic. But, despite the long pauses where he seemed confused, he still was bad assed.
Aside from that--that cat laid down some dog gone groovy lines.
If you don't like outside the box jazzers--you will never like Jaco.
As a jazzer myself--he was was awesome at improvising. He did decline in his fluidity as he got more manic. But, despite the long pauses where he seemed confused, he still was bad assed.
Aside from that--that cat laid down some dog gone groovy lines.
Not really. He sounded like a dude from Florida. When I was a kid learning about him, I expected him to be more "exotic" because his name sounds exotic and he wore, like, multi-colored shawls onstage.
But the thing is, what he was doing, nobody had done before. He splashed the music world in so many ways - his tone, his technical ability, his charisma, his compositional talent. People hadn't heard that out of a bass player before.
I get that Jaco's playing is a little inaccessible, and that a lot of guys, in emulating what he did, perhaps have done it better. But he was the baseline for a whole lot of stuff that is completely normal in bass playing today.
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Yeah, OP is probably trolling, but look on the bright side. A bunch of Jaco fans got to have a discussion about what they really loved about him, and there was tunes posted. That's not bad on a Monday morning if you're a fan.
I personally am not. I try to get into his sound on occasion. Going to give the Heavy Weather album a full listen right now actually.
I'd be a fool not to respect his chops or appreciate his contributions though.
Jaco's DNA is in every bass player that came after him, weather they know it or not
This is kinda where I’ve ended up. He played some fantastic jazz solos on the BG.
Just not impressed with bass playing itself, though. When he’s playing “what the bass player plays,” I can’t find any recording of him past 1980 or so where it wasn’t sorely lacking. There’s film of him doing “I Shot The Sheriff” that’s horrifically bad.
Good points.
He left indelible marks in jazz as a player, that even some accomplished bassists at that time did not have. He started out playing swing and bebop before Weather Report. He used the electric bass and replaced the upright with it. Thus, the modernization of jazz in more ways than one. In the end, yes he played and lived like a rockstar, but played jazz.
Sell you on Jaco? Nah. Jaco sells himself.
I think he made the following contributions.
1. A unique sound unheard of before he ripped the frets out of his Fender Jazz bass and filled the slots....covering the neck with boat epoxy.
2. He made the instrument a solo instrument in a way no one else had ever done.
3. He was technically and harmonically strong -- he knew his scales and harmony and used it effectively in improvisation.
Although he was fast in his playing, he wasn't mind-numbingly fast to the point you got sick of it -- there was always a purpose in the solo for the fast notes, and it tended to have a strong harmonic basis when he did it.
Check out his solo on Bright Size Life. Amazing over such simple chord changes.
Comment-- I'd also avoid snark toward the OP's question. I once asked someone to help me GET (understand) why a famous jazz record was so respected, and people responded with vitriol -- the guy is trying to understand and appreciate it, not criticize it, in my view...just like I was years ago on a different forum. It's the sort of thinking and querying we should be encouraging, not punishing.
1. A unique sound unheard of before he ripped the frets out of his Fender Jazz bass and filled the slots....covering the neck with boat epoxy.
2. He made the instrument a solo instrument in a way no one else had ever done.
3. He was technically and harmonically strong -- he knew his scales and harmony and used it effectively in improvisation.
Although he was fast in his playing, he wasn't mind-numbingly fast to the point you got sick of it -- there was always a purpose in the solo for the fast notes, and it tended to have a strong harmonic basis when he did it.
Check out his solo on Bright Size Life. Amazing over such simple chord changes.
Comment-- I'd also avoid snark toward the OP's question. I once asked someone to help me GET (understand) why a famous jazz record was so respected, and people responded with vitriol -- the guy is trying to understand and appreciate it, not criticize it, in my view...just like I was years ago on a different forum. It's the sort of thinking and querying we should be encouraging, not punishing.
could you please sell me on Jaco?
Why?
You like what he did or you don't.
You might at some point if you don't right now. Or not.
Doesn't matter if you like him or not, but I think it is good to be aware of his playing as so many people still refer to him in theirs. It helps you contextualise.
Why?
You like what he did or you don't.
You might at some point if you don't right now. Or not.
Doesn't matter if you like him or not, but I think it is good to be aware of his playing as so many people still refer to him in theirs. It helps you contextualise.
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LOL. Yeah a guy was bashing Steve Harris a few weeks back, and that' exactly how I felt. Please post your skilz I thought... I mean, if I could play like Steve Harris, I doubt that I'd be in a forum about a 50 watt Fender Combo amp on Saturday morning.
That being said... I don't like Jaco's music, style, or tone, but he gets my incredible respect for what he did and accomplished. You don't have to love him for his sound, but you do have to love him for what he contributed to the bass community.
Or so you probably should.
you mean.. Weather they Report it or not?
To be frank, and to add to what I said previously, while I do not like listening to Jaco's stuff, he's probably the reason nobody finds it odd when I start a bass solo or am just straight up noodlin' on the bridge pickup. My style is way more classically-oriented than jazz-oriented, but the tone I use is normalized by Jaco and people who came after him, who made a clear statement that bass isn't "that thumpy thumpy thing in the background, it can also do THIS". And speaking of Lemmy, he also pretty much normalized trebly sounding bass in heavier music, which I also use.
Without liking MUSIC of either of them, I can't not notice that their legacy still runs through me, and everyone else who was (in)directly inspired by them in some way.
This is certainly the case for me. I consume a lot of it, but when it comes to production I just sh** it out.
