How do you forget Jaco?

[Altitude]

Do you have access to a lead sheet for it?

Play it as if it were any other Real Book tune called on a gig, and not a cover of a particular recording. Learn the changes and consider the general style the tune is in, then approach it that way. Try to consciously ignore that Jaco recorded it.

This is advice given me back in the early 90s when I had to cover "Got a Match" in a big band ensemble. How do you attempt that and not try (and fail) to play it note-for-note to Patitucci's take? It went OK; I made it through but was hoping the whole time that nobody in the audience knew the song and expected me to feature in it.

If I'm honest, I've been really bad about vocabulary as a jazz player. I can read a lead sheet well and play many Real Book gigs, but unlike many guys I've never heard the "reference recording" of most of the tunes I play in those situations.

 

[JRA]

How do you forget Jaco?
i do it with beer, but that's just me.



seriously:

Play it as if it were any other Real Book tune called on a gig, and not a cover of a particular recording. Learn the changes and consider the general style the tune is in, then approach it that way.

 

[REV]

A song is a song. Get the chart and do your best interpretation of the song. There might be little passages where you can quote some Jaco just to pay homage to the man if you like.

 

[Jazz Ad]

As a sidenote, I wouldn't want to be the obnoxious fan but Metheny's work needs a lot more respect than he gets.
He's not just a random soloist. His notes always have meaning and Bright Size Life is one of the easiest songs from which to grasp the brilliance of his playing.
The more you listen, the more you discover stuff in this song.

 

[Groove Master]

May be if the guitar player doesn't play it and sound like PM it might help get away from Jaco's approach...

Just my thought

 

[Bob_Ross]

There are many ways to play differently from Jaco but Bright Size Life, the song is essentially made by the bass line. I wouldn't try something else on it.

This concept sounds so completely antithetical to my experience of the tune that I can barely understand where it's coming from. I can sing the entire melody to "Bright Size Life" in my sleep...but I probably couldn't hum a single lick of Jaco's bassline from the original recording.

Now, admittedly that's because I didn't listen to the original Metheny recording incessantly, I got the album shortly after it was released and didn't love it...but I did hear a ton of student ensembles play it when I was in college, and I've played it myself probably half a dozen times on gigs or jam sessions, and I've heard versions of "Bright Size Life" with Richard Bona and Larry Grenadier and Christian McBride and Steve Rodby on bass, and so to my ear it's *always* had a different bassline, but the melody and changes are the identity of the tune.

To me it's just one of the "new jazz standards" that doesn't have an iconic version, it's just a template. As @Altitude said above, play it like it's any other Real Book tune.

 

[JimK]

Here's a version...that may be unfamiliar to some-

 

[bassinplace]

How do you forget Jaco?
i do it with beer, but that's just me.



seriously:
View attachment 3562816

You and Jaco both! Oops...did I just say that out loud? I'll get my coat...