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Jaco

#21
I think everyones getting the wrong idea.

I'm not saying Jaco wasn't a pioneer.

I'm not saying he wasn't a new standard in bass technique excellence.

He can do and did do a lot of things on a bass that most people can't do and certainly would never have thought to do until he did them.

That said just because what he did was hard to do doesn't mean its pleasant to listen to.

I can apreciate the skill. I just don't like it.

-Rav
 
#22
I've re-read everyones defense of Jaco here and it seems to me everyone seems to be defending why they like him becuse of his technical talent and when he hit the scene.

Again I'm not bashing his skill or when he did it.

A couple people went so far as to say not liking him makes me a bad musician.

1) I am a bad musician.

2) I can apreciate what he is doing from a technical perspective.

3) See #1 I am a bad musician I can't play what he is playing.

That said that doesn't make what he is playing pleasant to listen to or inherently soulful or interesting.

45 minutes of Jaco is from a technical perspective a whirlwind demonstration of his timing and understanding of music theory.

45 minutes of Jaco is just about as musically interesting as listening to steve via plugged into a harmonizer double tapping for 45 minutes the sound of whales humping.

If you want to say its just "outside my comfort zone" thats ok with me.

In reference to the 12 year old savant I was talking about in the reading music thread. I do strive to understand and apreciate the mathmatics he created. That said I'm sure almost everyone on earth if they met him and saw him doing mathmatics would be utterly bored out of their skull. He was technically gifted but just as equally ungifted about his applications of math. He was just as likely to give you a formula explaining the spatial distribution of cotton in pill bottles as he was to give you a theorm on something useful.

Thats what jaco sounds like to me. The musical equivilent of cotton displacement mathmatics.

-Rav
 
#23
Jaco changed the face of electric bass forever. If his music doesn't appeal to you so be it but as many other TBer's mention make sure you check Jaco out when he was healthy.
Jaco Pastorius 1st solo album
All American Alien Boy Ian Hunter Solo Album
Don Juan's Reckless Daughter
Wether Report Birdland
Joni Mitchell DVD with Jaco and Methany
Put this music in the time perspective and tell me who was doing what Jaco was doing at that time.
It's the groove man, nobody had it like Jaco.
 
#24
Whatever floats your boat, I guess :hmm: But you used the word sucked in your first post, I think you should give it a little more time before you dismiss somebody like Jaco with the word "sucked". Agree to disagree...just my two pennies :cool:
 
#27
jerry said:
Whatever floats your boat, I guess :hmm: But you used the word sucked in your first post, I think you should give it a little more time before you dismiss somebody like Jaco with the word "sucked". Agree to disagree...just my two pennies :cool:
Click to expand...

+1

If you opinion is different then 99.9% of the bass players out there does it mean you are wrong? Probably.

You could have kept your trap shut or made a post saying "Hey I don't really get Jaco's music. It doesn't do it for me." but instead you tried to get a rise out of people here by saying that he sucks- and while that is your opinion you are bashing on one of the icons of bass playing that almost every bass player today loves.
 
#28
Actually I like Jazz quite a great deal. I do not however like Jazz where the vocalist is singing "out" I know its a valid style but I just don't dig it. Jaco's sort of like that hes playing out.

I'll give it another try in a few days. Maybe its one of those things where when you don't get what you expect it hits you wrong. Like one time I picked up a glass of sprite thinking it was water and when it hit my mouth my brain made me think it was acid. It just wasnt what my senses were ready for.

That said I'm sure other people feel like I do about Jaco. This message board seems to be filled with Jaco Nazi's ready to pounce on anyone not drinking the Jaco coolaid so Im sure they are all too timid to speak up in the face of that much firepower.

-Rav
 
#29
MichaelScott said:
+1

If you opinion is different then 99.9% of the bass players out there does it mean you are wrong? Probably.

You could have kept your trap shut or made a post saying "Hey I don't really get Jaco's music. It doesn't do it for me." but instead you tried to get a rise out of people here by saying that he sucks- and while that is your opinion you are bashing on one of the icons of bass playing that almost every bass player today loves.
Click to expand...


Who's trying to get a rise out of who? the word "sucks" by all definitions is always an opinion and not a fact. Admiring what he did and disliking his music are not mutually exclusive.

-Rav
 
#30
Rav said:
This message board seems to be filled with Jaco Nazi's ready to pounce on anyone not drinking the Jaco coolaid so Im sure they are all too timid to speak up in the face of that much firepower.
Click to expand...

There's a Jaco Nazi club? Where do I sign up? :D

Seriously though, your comment on Jaco being 'avant-garde' or his playing being 'out' made me think you don't like jazz or you haven't listened to much of it. I'm still not sure this isn't the case.... but in the end, there's no point in arguing over musical taste....

BTW, which vocalists are you referring to in terms of 'out' singing?

Mike
 
#32
prophecybass said:
Seriously though, your comment on Jaco being 'avant-garde' or his playing being 'out' made me think you don't like jazz or you haven't listened to much of it. I'm still not sure this isn't the case...
Click to expand...

There's all kinds of Jazz.
Some may be diehard Big Band fans & thus hate Bebop with the fury of a 1000 Suns.
Some may like only Hard Bop & despise Jazz Fusion...others may be into Latin Jazz & think Free Jazz is noizy BS.
It's like Rock music; plenty of subgenres for everybody!

"Avant Garde" is a funny term.
What is AG today probably won't be AG in the future.
At one time, Louis Armstrong was considered "Avant Garde"...then Bird, etc.

Jaco's 1975 debut album had some AG moments; by today's standards, it's pretty 'in'.

Rav-
Check out Jaco in POP music setting like Joni Mitchell's Shadows & Light cd/DVD.
Check out the 1st tune, "In France They Kiss On Main Street"...I still recall hearing that for the first time; that blew me away as much as any of his other "esoteric" records.
"Barbary Coast"(from Black Market), too.


BTW, if you wanna hear a guitarist that makes Vai or Satriani sound like the most "in" guitarist ever...check out Derek Bailey(maybe the Arcana stuff with Bill Laswell & Tony Williams). Guaranteed to knock the wax outta yer ears!
;)
 
#34
prophecybass said:
You don't like jazz, do you? If you don't 'get' jazz, you won't 'get' Jaco.

Mike
Click to expand...

i was 15 and listend only to metal and rock and hated Jazz, then i got to hear UZEB and i was blown away...a month later i was playing at a drummer's house and his mom asked me : "do you know Jaco ?" i said no...and then i heard this amazing stuff coming from the speakers...changed my playing and opend my mind.

i dig his music, his playing everything about this guy...
 
#36
I definitely think a lot of you are getting "hard to play" and "good to listen to" crosswired in your brains.

How many non bassists have even heard of Jaco?

Sort of says something about his appeal as a musician doesn't it.

-Rav
 
#38
Rav said:
How many non bassists have even heard of Jaco?

Sort of says something about his appeal as a musician doesn't it.
Click to expand...

What does it say? Not a whole lot.

I just read through the thread, and I didn't really get the feeling that people were praising Jaco for his technical skills. Sure, he's great technically, but he's also great musically and, uh, groove-ically (to those who don't think he sucks). I can definitely understand that not everyone may like it, but it was just the way you said it ("My god it sucks.") that stirred up this whole thing. From your first post it sounds like that was your intention. I may hate your favorite kind of music, but I would never just say it sucks. I cannot count how many albums made me go "Huh?" during my first listen, but I then grew to love. Bitches Brew is an example.

Hm, I'm getting some weird sentence structures today :eyebrow:

:ninja:
 
#39
Rav said:
I definitely think a lot of you are getting "hard to play" and "good to listen to" crosswired in your brains.
How many non bassists have even heard of Jaco?
Click to expand...

No crosswiring here. You didn't answer my question above either. ;)

Most musicians I know have 'heard' of Jaco, and a large proportion of them have heard his music and / or have some of his music. It all depends on who you hang with .... using 'popularity' as measure of a musician's 'value' is pretty silly, IMHO.

Mike
 
#40
Jaco's sort of like that hes playing out.
Click to expand...

No no no dude! That is the WHOLE beauty of Jaco. Listen to his intro to Punk Jazz. It sounds like erratic nonsense, if you wish. But the whole point is that Jaco was NEVER out, he always knew what was going on and I'd say almost everything he played was IN, whether it be a rhythmic, melodic or harmonical element.

I purely don't understand how you can't like his stuff if you don't like jazz? Okay, so mostly he erred on the jazz/ rock fusion border, even acid jazz at times (which personally aren't my faves, like the album with bley and ditmus), but the whole point of jazz is creative freedom and a true sense of knowing what is going on around you. Jaco embraced those two elements and took them further than any other bassist ever, in my opinion, even to this day.

Geez, just LISTEN to Continuum, Portrait of Tracy, even his solo in Havona! This is music at it's most melting, awe-inspiring peak :)

Like with me, it took a good few months to dig Jaco and what he was about at first, but at this point I'm probably quite obsessed with him and his music, and as a bass player an d all-round musician there was and for me is, no-one better.
 

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