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Donna Lee (Jaco version)

B

bassnutj

Dec 26, 2007
168
0
#1
So after all these years I've decided to tackle Jaco's solo. I'm just amazed at the vocabulary displayed on this track. After listening to it for so long, I always knew there was great phrasing in there, but when I began to learn it...whew.
There's blues, bebop, modern, everything. And it's completely coherent, logical, and melodic.
I'm sure this is old hat as a topic, but just thought I'd throw it out there for discussion. It's pretty amazing that he had this together when no one else was doing this kind of thing on electric bass.
 
#3
I've been on it for a month. I've got it memorized, but cannot play it at Jaco's tempo, which I think is around 210 bpm. It will take alot longer before I can execute it at that speed with some clarity.
I'd like to then take some of those ideas and transpose them, since the tune is just alot of ii/v's anyway.
 
#6
bassnutj said:
It's pretty amazing that he had this together when no one else was doing this kind of thing on electric bass.
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That's true - but there were plenty of of Jazz horn players, pianists and DB players doing this kind of thing in the 40,50s and 60s. :)

Paul Chambers (amongst many others) played some great unaccompanied bass solos on similar material, well before Jaco.
 
#7
Bruce Lindfield said:
That's true - but there were plenty of of Jazz horn players, pianists and DB players doing this kind of thing in the 40,50s and 60s. :)

Paul Chambers (amongst many others) played some great unaccompanied bass solos on similar material, well before Jaco.
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Yeah, the key word is on electric bass at a time when no one else was doing it.
Dig?
 
#10
Bruce Lindfield said:
Jaco was great - but having played both, I find bass guitar much easier to play than Double Bass, actually...:eyebrow:
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Chill out man, this is an unnecessary argument. Paul Chambers was a fantastic musician that was way ahead of his time, as was Jaco. This is a discussion about Jaco's rendition of the Bird tune, not who's better or what instrument is harder. The moment you make music a competition is the moment you lose the point of music.
 
#11
Well I'm not making it a competition - in fact the opposite - I just don't see that because it was a different instrument makes it somehow "better"...:confused:

So if somebody came along and played Donna Lee on a pennywhistle for example - would we say :

"Yeah, the key word is on pennywhistle at a time when no one else was doing it." :confused:
Dig?

I think any Jazz musician needs to be taken on the same terms regardless of what instrument they played.
 
#12
Bruce Lindfield said:
Well I'm not making it a competition - in fact the opposite - I just don't see that because it was a different instrument makes it somehow "better"...:confused:

So if somebody came along and played Donna Lee on a pennywhistle for example - would we say :

"Yeah, the key word is on pennywhistle at a time when no one else was doing it." :confused:
Dig?

I think any Jazz musician needs to be taken on the same terms regardless of what instrument they played.
Click to expand...

That's a fair enough call. I think part of the deal with Jaco's playing is the historical importance - if you want to judge jazz players as improvisers, regardless of the instrument, then Jaco arguably was the first guy to improvise with that kind of vocabulary and fluidity on the electric bass, which put the inspiration there for the guys today such as Janek to do what they do as improvisers. However I don't want to open that can of worms!

If you want to take the solo from an angle that is removed from the instrument, then to me it still stands up as a great solo - it's melodic, lyrical and expressive; he grooves; he deals with the changes and shows harmonic knowledge. Ever tried playing root movement under Jaco's solo? That's a really cool exercise in terms of hearing where he's coming from :D
 
#13
Historically speaking, and maybe Janek (or anyone else for that matter) can help out: I don't know really who else was in fact soloing like that on electric bass back then (1975-76).

Stanley Clarke is the first that comes to mind, as his first solo album came out in what, 1974? It had "Lospy Lu" on it, which is basically some blues/funk licks....Then "School Days" came out in 1975, and that solo is all pentatonic and bluesy with a crazy chromatic fast run thrown in for good measure.
Surely, Stanley was playing great solos on double bass before that with Return To Forever, etc. but those weren't bebop and upper chord structures....

I don't know much about Alphonso Johnson, who played in Weather Report before Jaco, but I haven't ever heard a solo like that from him. I do know he played fretless before Jaco, but his tone was different.

I'm well aware of the history of double bassists soloing in an advanced concept, from Jimmy Blanton to Miroslav Vitous. My point was that the most advanced we had on electric bass (which by the time Jaco's first album came out was only 20 years in existence) was Stanley Clarke. You could also say those James Jamerson basslines were pretty damn advanced but those weren't solos.
 
#14
I think Donna Lee showed that Jaco has Jazz sensibility and knows a lot about Jazz harmony - but it doesn't impress me as 'innovative', as much as his own compositions - such as Portrait of Tracy, where he was demonstrating a truly new use of harmonics within chords - or Havona and 3 Views of a Secret which have deservedly become Jazz Standards! :)
 
#15
I agree that Jaco's tunes were more innovative , as it were, than his interpretation of Donna Lee.


All I'm trying to say, for ****'s sake, is that he kicked some ****ing ass on Donna Lee. Do we really need to go around in circles about this fact?
 
#16
I have to disagree about his compositions being more innovative than his playing. I love most of his tunes, but I don't see how they represent anything compositionally innovative. I'm talking about his compositions, not the way they were recorded.

To me his playing will always stand out as innovative - not because he played a certain tune on electric bass (or the fact that he absolutely burned) but because he represented someone who could do it all. And he did do it on a fairly young instrument - the electric bass. Not a piano or a horn or a double bass, which all are different instruments from Jaco's. His tone, articulation, intonation and fluidity were much more developed than those who came before him (and most who came later), while his feel and choice of notes stamped his personality on whatever he played.
 
#17
middlebit said:
I have to disagree about his compositions being more innovative than his playing. I love most of his tunes, but I don't see how they represent anything compositionally innovative. I'm talking about his compositions, not the way they were recorded.
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Well I mentioned one innovation specifically - using harmonics as part of a chord that also included normal notes and developing a style of (solo) bass that filled out all the audio spectrum - something he developed in hs work with Joni Mitchell. So 'Jericho' on DJ'sRD has just bass guitar - but it sounds like a whole orchestra with low fretless mwah and high ringing harmonics simultaneously! :)


Something like Continuum again, is written specifically as a work to showcase Jaco's style and how the fretless bass can be made to sing and accompany itself - it's a great tune that can only really be played to best effect on bass guitar. I can't imagine hearing it in any other way - wherea I have heard many other versions of 'Donna Lee' that I have much preferred - e.g. by Charlie Parker, Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh etc etc.
 
#18
bassnutj said:
I agree that Jaco's tunes were more innovative , as it were, than his interpretation of Donna Lee.


All I'm trying to say, for ****'s sake, is that he kicked some ****ing ass on Donna Lee. Do we really need to go around in circles about this fact?
Click to expand...

I sense some hosiilty...? :eyebrow:

I just find this subject interesting - so why does "Donna Lee" attract so much attention from bass players - when to me it is just one of hundreds, maybe thousands of Jazz standards I have played...?

It seems strange to me - that I meet bass players who are totally into rock and have never listened to any other Jazz - but get obsessed with Donna Lee and will buy the "Charlie Parker Omnibook" etc . :confused:

Do people who don't really get Jaco - just listen to the first track on the album and think that they have to get past this ..? I think it's OK not to like everything that Jaco did - and I don't think there should be this unhealthy obsession....;)
 
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