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Jaco clip causing some controversy

#281
JimK said:
Here's a blurb from Musician magazine, December 1987-

Joni Mitchell sez...
The Shadows & Light tour worked out fine, but it did not look like it was going to. Jaco was MD, & as MD he didn't show up until we'd already been in rehearsal for two weeks. And when he did show up he decided he didn't like the band. As we'd been rehearsing without a bass player, we'd kind of fleshed it in to where it sounded pretty good even without a bass. So when Jaco came, he started tearing the arrangements apart, demanding more space onstage. He later came to love everybody, but he didn't hear it that way initially. He didn't like Don Alias on drum kit. He liked him on hand drums. Well, I really liked the feel of Don's playing. He is not a technical virtuoso on the kit like he is on congas & other kinds of drums, where he's in the top three in the world, but he's such a good feeling kit player to me. So we had this big argument & it looked like this thing was not going to fly. But as the tour rolled along that tension dissolved. As a matter of fact, he took that band & played with them on his own record.

I think we played very well on that tour, especially, oddly enough, the day we filmed. Something personal had happened to him that day. I don't know what. Something between his wife & his mother, some family thing had gone down. He was in the midst of some tempering revelation. When we started, the first few notes he played were from "The High & Mighty". For a minute I thought, "I can't believe it! I watching Jaco having a humble attack! It's not really good for him to be this humble. Come on, Jaco, be a little arrogant"! Toward the end, he took off, but he used to jump over his amp & beat his Bass with his strap every night on that tour - this was the one night he didn't do it. It was a shame because Mike Brecker & I had cooked it up that when he jumped over the speakers & beat hos bass, Mike was going to jump out & beat his saxophone. We were going to have a real donnybrook up there. I thought, "Maybe I'll come out & beat the piano". And he didn't do it.
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Nice! Sounds about right.
 
#282
It's been stated earlier in this thread - nobody would get upset if this was a player on another instrument playing the exact same way. Because it's a bass player, people lose their minds. It seems like everybody but the bass player can get away with varying degrees of "overplaying." I, for one, grew tired of being treated like a function rather than a musician. And God bless Jaco Pastorius for showing me there's a different way.
 
#283
Joni Mitchell = genius.
She could have had any musicians she wanted.
Pat Metheny = genius.
Lyle Mays = genius.
Don Alias = genius.
She could have had any one of thousands of bassists:
She got - and kept - Jaco Pastorius? Guess what. Big surprise = genius.

Period.
 
#284
bigcatJC said:
It's been stated earlier in this thread - nobody would get upset if this was a player on another instrument playing the exact same way. Because it's a bass player, people lose their minds. It seems like everybody but the bass player can get away with varying degrees of "overplaying." I, for one, grew tired of being treated like a function rather than a musician. And God bless Jaco Pastorius for showing me there's a different way.
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Amen!
 
#285
slombovia said:
Joni Mitchell = genius.
She could have had any musicians she wanted.
Pat Metheny = genius.
Lyle Mays = genius.
Don Alias = genius.
She could have had any one of thousands of bassists:
She got - and kept - Jaco Pastorius? Guess what. Big surprise = genius.

Period.
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Agree 100%!
Zawinul & Shorter coulda had their choice, too...

The very next paragraph in that Joni Mitchell Musician thing-
She says there was not a breakup between her & Jaco...his playing became subpar & she stopped calling...and they drifted apart. Sad times, there.
 
#287
When Jaco left Weather Report, there was a young 19-ish year old that had just arrived in Va Beach...this guy (kid!) coulda stepped right into that gig & WR would not have missed a beat. The kid was Oteil Burbridge. He was that good in 1983/84.

Nothing against Victor Bailey, either.
 
#290
bigcatJC said:
It's been stated earlier in this thread - nobody would get upset if this was a player on another instrument playing the exact same way. Because it's a bass player, people lose their minds. It seems like everybody but the bass player can get away with varying degrees of "overplaying." I, for one, grew tired of being treated like a function rather than a musician. And God bless Jaco Pastorius for showing me there's a different way.
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THIS!
 
#291
bigcatJC said:
It's been stated earlier in this thread - nobody would get upset if this was a player on another instrument playing the exact same way. Because it's a bass player, people lose their minds. It seems like everybody but the bass player can get away with varying degrees of "overplaying." I, for one, grew tired of being treated like a function rather than a musician. And God bless Jaco Pastorius for showing me there's a different way.
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Amen Brother!!
 
#293
Just a side comment regarding some bass players not digging JP's sound and playing; which BTW is perfectly all right.

I remember when his solo LP hit the streets and I snapped it up right away; and was amazed, but not really hip to where it was coming from. I would have said a lot of the things I hear in some of the posts in this thread. I didn't like the sound of the bass and didn't get the R&B part of the thing. I confess I had gone through the whole British invasion thing, aping players like Chris Squire etc. And, when Stanley Clarke's Brown Album came out, that one clicked with me in a big way; because the sound and playing was precise, the arrangements were precise, and it sort of seemed like the next step after Yes, Genesis, King Crimson etc. I guess that would have been '76-ish for me. Jaco's sound seemed..."blurry" (cringe).

So, about 11 years later after I was done with grad school and out in the "real world," I happened to fall into the local music scene in Mid-Michigan ('87-ish) and more or less became house bass player for an open mic Blues Jam that was happening every Wed night for a couple of years. It didn't hurt that I had picked up the '62 J in my avatar that came out of a Flint MI pawn shop and was working with that bass. And there were several talented local musicians that made that scene, people like Larry McCray would show up and we would play until all hours of the morning. THAT made me hip to many of the elements that Jaco had come up with; and going back and studying his stuff at that point was a revelation. For me, it all came together at that point, the sound, the R&B thing, and of course the playing and compositions.

Not to get too far afield, but for me the British Rock stuff was kind of like drinking beer in college. Jaco's stuff was like small batch whiskey; and I wasn't ready when it came out. I can easily see some bass players never being attuned to it. It all depends on your references. YMMV.

Back to the regularly scheduled...:)
 
#294
bigcatJC said:
It's been stated earlier in this thread - nobody would get upset if this was a player on another instrument playing the exact same way. Because it's a bass player, people lose their minds. It seems like everybody but the bass player can get away with varying degrees of "overplaying." I, for one, grew tired of being treated like a function rather than a musician. And God bless Jaco Pastorius for showing me there's a different way.
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yep. perfectly put.
also, Jaco could comp and support beautifully, and WRITE/ARRANGE at a world-class level.

it's strange that there's still "controversy" about him...
at this point it's like the
"so, is the 6-string a REAL bass..?" kvetch.
 
#296
joe vegas said:
sure does look like they all were having a fantastic time onstage at this gig-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1XFbhSMxIM

in the interviews i've read, Joni dug the tour and the recording sessions for the albums with this band. she said that Jaco became a musical soulmate who was fully able to bring an approach on bass that she was asking her other bassists for, but who refused saying that the bass was a "rhythm section instrument" (it's in the 4-part Jaco youtube doc).

as far as brecker's reaction at the end of his solo, we can slow the tape of his expression down to single frames like the Zapruder film, and still not know what was in his head. hearsay and "i have it on good authority that.." doesn't really cut it.

i'll submit that Jaco's comping behind the solo on "Dry Cleaner" takes the tune to a powerful new level- and also, these weren't exactly uptight jazzers or by-the-numbers blues cats- each guy onstage was an experimenter and boundary-pusher in his own career, so what Jaco was doing isn't exactly over the top or inappropriate or harmonically threatening to them, as it would be to the generic meat&potatoes rank & file session guys of the day.
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Michael Pope posted that brecker told him that he didn't really dig playing with jaco. That's a pretty good authority!
 
#298
narud said:
Michael Pope posted that brecker told him that he didn't really dig playing with jaco. That's a pretty good authority!
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Pope has very good insight on the matter, having direct contact with Jaco's children and associates through Fodera. I would take his statements as well informed, but I consider the live "Dry Cleaner" as the perfect example of Jaco in all of his amazing glory...kind of like Hendrix at Woodstock. You can't repeat this kind of thing and this is the exact track I refer as an introductory to his work to my friends.
 
#299
PahaPeikko said:
I happened to bump into this Jaco clip of Joni Mithell era which have stirred conversation about the way Jaco is playing behind soloists.



Here's a couple of the most opposite, but also well-founded views on Tube of which neither is totally right or wrong or what do you think?

"Actually, I find Jaco's playing on this brilliant and some of the best, melodic walking bass technique ever displayed. This is essentially a three piece group on this tune, drums, bass and sax. Jaco is not only laying down the bass but also outlining the chord changes. He does an incredible job doing all this, and throwing in all kinds of great chord substitutions to keep the harmony interesting and provide Michael Brecker with a great background against which to solo...."

"As brilliant as Jaco's playing is on this, it's also obnoxious and totally self-serving, as if he just can't fight off his need to be the center of attention. He kills the tritone substitution too many times, and his playing at 2:04-2:07 and 2:37-2:41 is particularly annoying and pointless; stepping all over both the singer and soloist. Sorry folks but I am definitely someone who can appreciate his musicianship, but I would find playing with him to be a total friggin' chore."
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It is just a 70s jazz jam ... probably under the influence of some sort of contraban substance.

Sometimes people will try to attribute a lot of forethought to a song where the musician simply played what he thought sounded good.
 

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