RHFusillo said:
Absolutely. Jaco did so many things that nobody else ever had, he basically pioneered the bass and turned it into what it is today. He's the man.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Jaco Gossip - from Bobby Colomby...
- Thread starter Mike Flynn
- Start date
Absolutely. Jaco did so many things that nobody else ever had, he basically pioneered the bass and turned it into what it is today. He's the man.
i do appreciate this mike and i thank you for sharing .Mike Flynn said:
but i must nit-pick
im just saying , POT was an improvised tune , and Bobby used "studio trickery" to do an arrangement , hence the BS comment from Jaco.
it all worked out great in the end . cheers
fretlessrock said:
This is exactly the point of Bobby's story - he's a producer for god's sake - that his job to find the fantastic innovative moments and somehow capture and present them in a way that an audience wanting an 'audio' experience, (as opposed to an 'audio visual' experience of seeing / hearing the performer live), hence albums can and tend to be different things to live performances - your average rock album is so over produced I think a lot of bands struggle to reproduce anything like that sound live - the best ones do the live version and make no bones about the album being one thing and a live performance being another. The worst ones mime to backing tracks...
I think a lot of Jaco's appeal - then and now - was that he had such an incredibly powerful voice as a musician - not just a bass player - and this, one likes to imagine, meant he could execute flawless vituoisity with everything he did - he was somehow above even making mistakes - and played everything perfectly. While this is obviously true for most of the stuff we all know and love - Jaco was also a great composer and I think this went over into stuff like the solo on 'Havona' being constructed 'phrase by phrase' - there's nothing wrong with this as he still 'plays' the solo with incredible skill and wonderful feel and ideas - but he was again thinking of the record as a document - set in stone - and as a composition as well as a performance.
Also remeber that he was only 25 when he was in the studio with Colomby, he was a wild, highly energetic kid with excessive amounts of energy and although he had an awesome amount of talent he needed someone like BC to help channel his talents to produce such a striking and varied album - again there's nothing wrong with that - it just makes you think that even the legends of music use many ways and means to get the stuff down on tape...
I didn't post this to be controversial - just to relay and interesting tale about one of our heroes - glad to see you all debating it with some maturity etc - I'm not dissing Jaco and or others - just passing on what I was told.
Fair enough Mike. I didn't mean to come off like a d***, I just heard a different version. I too heard that Havona (and the solo in ChaCha) was put together from seperate snipets of recordings. But with POT, it says in his biography that he wrote and played it for Tracy in the privacy of their bathroom, your story basically says that Jaco didn't even mean for it to sound like it does and was put together by BC from random harmonic lines that Jaco layed down in no specific order. No big deal, just 2 different versions of a 30 year-old story, it tends to happen.
All cool Mikey - I don't even really mind however it was recorded or put together - I'm just damn glad it was...and thank the lord for Jaco is all I'll add to that.
M
M
It's kind of like the arranging help Jaco had from that young cat Bill Milkowski talks about in his book....In the Word of Mouth era (I think) Jaco would write scraps of music here and there, and send it to (I can't remember the guy's name, I'm not the biggest Jacophile here) this guy, who would put it together and do the actual arrangements. Jaco came up with all the ideas, nobody tried to take credit for them. Similarly, I don't think Colomby is trying to take credit for POT or anything else. It was obviously all there...Jaco just had some help putting it together into a cohesive single track. I don't think it makes it any less amazing. Similarly, there are all sorts of rumors about the Havona solo on Heavy Weather being edited together...but who cares? Hearing Jaco on the numerous live cuts -- no matter their quality -- shows that he could put together an amazing solo on the fly, without the benefit of editing.
Just my 02
Just my 02
It makes sense.......when I first saw Jaco with Weather Report[before he jumped around] he played a solo the he called POT but just had the opening half, then he went into a more free form solo that was just as amazing. This was about '76, and believe me....it was mind blowing for the time 
I think thats when I decided to move to Hawaii LOL 
I think thats when I decided to move to Hawaii LOL 
I had a nice phone conversation with Bob Bobbing last night regarding this very topic.
Though he admits he wasn't present at the recording session, he does believe Bobby Colomby's story probably has some credence in it.
Bob is in possession of Jaco's demo tapes for his debut album (good lord I'd love to hear those) and can say with certainty that "Portrait of Tracy" was the last song on the album to come together. In fact, on the demos, there is a 12+ minute bass workout (not a full tune - just the seed of a tune) simply titled "Harmonics Stuff." Bob says that tune then evolved and came together in the studio - which would seem to support Bobby Colomby's story.
Bob did qualify his statements, however, by saying Jaco wasn't some lost soul who needed others to sort out his jams to come up with tunes.
Jaco may have had some aid with this tune, but it's still him we hear playing on the album, and I don't think this diminishes his genius in any way.
Though he admits he wasn't present at the recording session, he does believe Bobby Colomby's story probably has some credence in it.
Bob is in possession of Jaco's demo tapes for his debut album (good lord I'd love to hear those) and can say with certainty that "Portrait of Tracy" was the last song on the album to come together. In fact, on the demos, there is a 12+ minute bass workout (not a full tune - just the seed of a tune) simply titled "Harmonics Stuff." Bob says that tune then evolved and came together in the studio - which would seem to support Bobby Colomby's story.
Bob did qualify his statements, however, by saying Jaco wasn't some lost soul who needed others to sort out his jams to come up with tunes.
Jaco may have had some aid with this tune, but it's still him we hear playing on the album, and I don't think this diminishes his genius in any way.
I'll never forget the day my Arranging teacher came into class and said, "There's a bass player who's playing with Pat Metheny at Michael's Pub, who makes Stanley Clarke sound like a little old lady!"
And he proceeded to tell some of the myths that became part of the Jaco legend, like he had only been playing for about a year, etc. I later found out that most of that was crap.
And he proceeded to tell some of the myths that became part of the Jaco legend, like he had only been playing for about a year, etc. I later found out that most of that was crap.
All good guys - glad to hear Bob Bobbings is cool too with this tale - this is an interesting topic - but nothing changes the fact that as electric or acoustic bassists we are damn lucking that Jaco showed up for how long he did - and changed this stuff for ever. Like others I'm just glad we still have the recordings we do of him - I think I've said enough on the subjest - but it's great to hear so many other POVs.
Cheers good people
Mike
Cheers good people
Mike
Futurebass said:
Get used to that idea. Lots of pro stuff is that way. Mutt Lange totally takes control of the projects he produces and final product sometimes bears very little resemblance to what the band brought in. That is why the producers usually get such a big piece of the pie, usually more than the individual members of the band, and frequently the same as the single artist who composed the tune in the first place. Lots of top-notch producers fix tunes, turning "acceptible album material" into chart ranking hits.
Sorry for taking this a bit off-focus of Jaco, but there was nothing unusual or "cheap" about the arrangement of POT, if the statement is true or not. Its all good, and Jaco certainly wouldn't have let it go on the final record if he really disapproved of it.
Eric Moesle said:
And he gets to do the dirty deed with Shania Tang. Bet if he recorded that and spliced it up he could sell a few copies!!!!
I'm with MickyFingers..not buying this.
Jaco's writing and arranging ability well developed before Bobby stumbled on to him in Miami. Bobby can take credit for signing the best musician of a generation and pressing record in the studio. I, for one, will be grateful to him till the day I die for that. As far as taking anymore credit than that....NOT!
Jaco's writing and arranging ability well developed before Bobby stumbled on to him in Miami. Bobby can take credit for signing the best musician of a generation and pressing record in the studio. I, for one, will be grateful to him till the day I die for that. As far as taking anymore credit than that....NOT!
My family has a good friend who is a pretty well known musician in the philly area. He was telling me a story from one of his friends who played bass in Jaco's band. I guess you could call him a 'rythem' bass plater. Anyway, they all had rooms in a hotel one night and his was next to Jaco's. The walls were pretty thin so at some point during the night, he hears Jaco scream "Yes, for the first time in my life I've done something right!" and then there was a loud crash as he smashed something through his TV screen and all the power in the building went out. It's sad how troubled he was, but it's also a pretty funny story.
