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Jeff Berlin "similar" to Jaco?

#41
Well, here's a similarity in the sort of global, Big Picture sense...and it's a similarity that Jeff himself noted:

Back around 1980, when he was still in Bruford's quartet (and Jaco was still alive, playing in Weather Report) I saw Jeff at a seminar during which he said something to the effect of "me and Jaco are the only bassists given complete carte blanche by our respective bands...we get to play whatever we want to. That's a luxury and a rarity."
 
#42
Roscoe East said:
Back around 1980, when he was still in Bruford's quartet (and Jaco was still alive, playing in Weather Report) I saw Jeff at a seminar during which he said something to the effect of "me and Jaco are the only bassists given complete carte blanche by our respective bands...we get to play whatever we want to. That's a luxury and a rarity."
Click to expand...

Berlin is very into himself and I'm sure he enjoyed putting himself in the same sentence with Jaco whenever he could. The problem is, Jaco is wayyyyy better than Berlin.
 
#43
They are both amazing players, and I see where the wiki article was coming from.

To me Jaco's playing is drenched in feel and rhythmic authority. His tone when good(it was admittedly uneven) was amazing. Jeff is no doubt technically at least as adept, and probably has much more theoretical knowledge than Jaco did, but his playing feels more academic and less feel-based (no doubt because he doesn't use a metronome :hiding:). But, these are not things that the ordinary non-musician would ever notice.

Wikipedia is written for the layperson. TBers are not the intended audience. When a non-musician hears Jaco and Jeff Berlin, they probably can't tell the difference. What they hear is two busy, melodic players who use a midrange-rich tone and play boring overly complex songs that will never ever make it into the top 40. :)
 
#47
IMO only thing Jeff and Jaco have in common tonewise is they both prefer using a pickup mounted closer to the bridge on their instruments. But that's about it. Jaco and Jeff are two very, very different players.
 
#48
Ironic, a friend of mine took a lesson, IIRC he didn't want to continue, with JB and he had a flss J. The first thing JB said when he took his bass out was don't play flss, you'll sound like Jaco.
I agree all but a very few would notice a difference.
It would be tough to find anyone who knows their fretboard and theory more than JB, for what it's worth.
 
#49
Jeff does seem to wear that "if you play fretless you'll sound like Jaco" thing on his sleeve pretty overtly

Thing is, he's right about it more often than not :)

My favorite refutation of this though was at a clinic Jeff did in '79 or '80 where he said "every single one of you guys who's picked up fretless bass, you're doing it because you wanted to sound like Jaco. Every one of you."

From the back of the room someone yells "Bullsh!t!"

It's Victor Bailey

...who then goes on to say "I picked up fretless bass because I wanted to sound like Alphonso."
 
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#51
Deleted member 96522 said:
IMO only thing Jeff and Jaco have in common tonewise is they both prefer using a pickup mounted closer to the bridge on their instruments. But that's about it. Jaco and Jeff are two very, very different players.
Click to expand...

Going through some old posts?

I thought pretty much any fretless player of the era was considered a Jaco clone. I have even heard it about Marcus Miller.
 

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