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Paul Jackson Bad Pocket???

#81
for those scratching their heads:

A bad player can't stay with the metronome.
A good player can stay with the metronome.
A great player intentionally plays a little ahead or a little behind the metronome to add feeling.

Listening to Headhunters, "Hang Up Your Hang Ups" (1/2) - YouTube it does sound like he's rushing ahead of the drummer a bit. The reason it works is because the song has a fast beat and he's playing a very busy, lead-like line high up on the neck. It makes you kind of want to lean forward in your chair, and I'm sure that's the effect he was going for.
 
#83
Rockin Mike said:
for those scratching their heads:

A bad player can't stay with the metronome.
A good player can stay with the metronome.
A great player intentionally plays a little ahead or a little behind the metronome to add feeling.

Listening to Headhunters, "Hang Up Your Hang Ups" (1/2) - YouTube it does sound like he's rushing ahead of the drummer a bit. The reason it works is because the song has a fast beat and he's playing a very busy, lead-like line high up on the neck. It makes you kind of want to lean forward in your chair, and I'm sure that's the effect he was going for.
Click to expand...
Boogaloo.
 
#84
51gtBopxyuL._SL500_AA300_.jpg


Great album.
 
#87
Mumwup said:
I know I'll be flamed for this, but over the years I've listened to Paul Jackson, it sounds to me like he has bad pocket and poor technique. Listen to Hang up you Hang ups, Actual Proof, Spank a Lee, Palm Grease and many others. Maybe my ears just aren't big enough, but he sounds like he just doesn't get the groove. Can anybody talk me down?:confused:
Click to expand...

Sadly, I wasn't really familiar with his work until this thread.

Anyway, if you want to narrowly define pocket and technique as being tightly locked with the beat of the drummer, then yes he doesn't really follow that routine.

What I'm hearing is that he deliberately works around the beat (a bit ahead or behind) and creates a very dynamic groove by doing so. Definitely not "poor" technique to accomplish that. I'd say that's a very highly developed technique if anything.
 
#90
Been a fan for longer than I can remember. No offense to anyone...

My guess is that some pockets may too big for everyone to understand. Take the then teenaged Bootsy on Sex Machine. He's largely playing the octave. At the time I've no doubt that some thought he was putting some of the notes in the "wrong places". But for others, like myself, that spasmodic trance he was in was mindblowing. Who would pick those spots to play those notes? What does he know that I don't know?
:D

Heck, with some of the Herbie stuff I sometime forget where the one is... but the players don't. So maybe a pocket can be over your head?

Players like that tend to go underappreciated by the general population. Bootsy, Rocco, Percy Jones and Paul Jackson fall into the category of bassists who I think, unbeknownst to most, ARE the pocket. So while some are thinking the drums established it or the rhythm lick... nope. They're hanging onto the savant on the bass.

The proof in that is how many people I've heard try to mimic the above guys over the years and alway fail miserably. There's something they do, heck possibly unconsciously, that we generally speaking can't.
:cool:

And Mike Clark is just flat out stupid. That would definitely be one of my very few dream jams.
:hyper::bassist:
 
#91
Brad Johnson said:
Been a fan for longer than I can remember. No offense to anyone...

My guess is that some pockets may too big for everyone to understand. Take the then teenaged Bootsy on Sex Machine. He's largely playing the octave. At the time I've no doubt that some thought he was putting some of the notes in the "wrong places". But for others, like myself, that spasmodic trance he was in was mindblowing. Who would pick those spots to play those notes? What does he know that I don't know?
:D

Heck, with some of the Herbie stuff I sometime forget where the one is... but the players don't. So maybe a pocket can be over your head?

Players like that tend to go underappreciated by the general population. Bootsy, Rocco, Percy Jones and Paul Jackson fall into the category of bassists who I think, unbeknownst to most, ARE the pocket. So while some are thinking the drums established it or the rhythm lick... nope. They're hanging onto the savant on the bass.

The proof in that is how many people I've heard try to mimic the above guys over the years and alway fail miserably. There's something they do, heck possibly unconsciously, that we generally speaking can't.
:cool:

And Mike Clark is just flat out stupid. That would definitely be one of my very few dream jams.
:hyper::bassist:
Click to expand...
+1 Another fine example of pocket playing going over folks heads is the rhythm section of Dave Weckl and Tom Kennedy. I know several really good drummers, who can play pocket funk all day long, who just don't 'get' Weckl! They just can't figure him out. Thereby blowing him off!
 
#92
DWBass said:
+1 Another fine example of pocket playing going over folks heads is the rhythm section of Dave Weckl and Tom Kennedy. I know several really good drummers, who can play pocket funk all day long, who just don't 'get' Weckl! They just can't figure him out. Thereby blowing him off!
Click to expand...

Many thanks to all who've participated.

Rocco and Kennedy are examples of players "who [indeed] can play funk all day long" and do so without playing rhythmically awkward embellishments that don't add value to the groove.
 
#93
I thought the response that Paul has an ongoing dialog with the drummer as spot on. And on the topic of pocket, and let's use Hop Scotch as an example I hear and feel Paul's bassline as being polyrythmic against what Harvey is doing. Great thread!!!
 
#94
Paul Jackson is probably my favorite electric player. One of the main reasons is that he OWNS a style. I can tell it's him in 3 notes. And he has TONS of chops. Not velocity chops. As I mature as a player I can see the difference between velocity chops and groove and articulation chops. For me, his embellishments add to the groove. He has the ability to have the groove elements super solid and then his embellishments DO sound like another player. That is really hard to do. It's like having 2 independent brains. The extra stuff doesn't affect the basic groove. And he plays tons of extra stuff. To me it sounds like 2 guys playing because there is such independence. Yes he does often play on top of the beat. So did Jamerson. Both were upright players and jazzers first, so that mentality of propulsion is there. For better or worse. But they both groove HARD. If you listen to Actual Proof on "Flood" it does pick up a few metronome markings by the end. It has the Tony Williams/Ron Carter kind of rhythmic urgency. I'm not justifying rushing, but in jazz we are a little more accepting because if it's grooving and developing it can still feel good. I try to not rush in jazz contexts, but if I have to choose, I'll opt for picking up a metronome marking rather than dropping one.
But the biggest reason I love Paul is that he always makes me smile.
 
#95
Mumwup said:
Many thanks to all who've participated.

Rocco and Kennedy are examples of players "who [indeed] can play funk all day long" and do so without playing rhythmically awkward embellishments that don't add value to the groove.
Click to expand...

I'd bet alot of bassists do find Rocco's style to be "rhythmically awkward"... the very reason so many have difficulty mimicing him. The guys I mentioned all have a world class use of space in their playing.

I don't agree with Weckl/Kennedy being in the same vein as the guys I listed. They do go over many folk's heads and Weckl's obviously an excellent drummer but has a very dense pocket... just MO. Never considered that anywhere near funk. More heavy polyrhythmic which can often be the antithesis of funk. Polyrhythmic with space ain't easy. Will Kennedy nails that IMO.

They (Dave and Tom) play well together but I'd put Clark/Jackson on a different plane. I think people really get more of a chance to notice what they're doing in their interplay... hence this thread I guess.
:D
 
#97
HAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHA PAUL JACKSON????? BAD POCKET??? What? Do you even know what people mean by "pocket"? I really don't know what to tell you right now.. and I don't know what Herbie would've sounded like without him, Paul Jackson was the funkiest up there with Larry Graham, Bootsy, Dave Holland, Harvey Brooks, Stanley Clarke, Flea, Marcus Miller, James Jamerson, you name it, Paul Jackson is a legend my dear friend, and your rambling on TB when you have no clue about these kinds of things makes you look like a fool. Sorry!
 
#98
@chief recok - yeah, you totally nailed it... I grew up listening to Headhunters & all of the late 60's Miles, Weather Report etc... Paul Jackson is Greasy Funky!!!! I ALWAYS liked his choice of approach tones, slides, etc. He was PHAT! Another, is Alphonso Johnson... Another Pocket player, who really has a unique and wonderful voice.... Don't be to hard on the young whipper snapper.... It is only his youth that allows him to say such uninformed things....:)
 

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