Jaco Pastorius: S/D.

at the time (i am v.old) i tht he wz a complete idiot, but probbly i have mellowed: i generally do

aww...

He defintitely is the best bass guitarist, but I don't think he quite eclipses Mingus as my favorite jazz bassist.

Oh OK OK, "Three views of a secret" is a brilliant title, he can't really be blamed for the mediocrity of mid-late period Weather Report albs, and yes he had superduper chops that made electric jazz bass a LEAD instrument for the first (and last?) time. But awesome technique blahdiblah in this case also made for hours and yards of yawnsome noodling and a frankly horrible/wanky 'signature sound' that already sounds dated and howlingly empty, and when you look at the 'official' discog it now seems so slight and unfulfilled - I mean, no WAY is that first alb one of the greatest jazz whatsits of all time or whatever, but he certainly never made a better rec.

Rhino/Warners have just issued a pretty comprehensive anthology called 'Punk Jazz', a title that annoys the piss out of me, even tho' I'm far from being a punk purist...

Oh OK OK, "Three views of a secret" is a brilliant title, he can't really be blamed for the mediocrity of mid-late period Weather Report albs, and yes he had superduper chops that made electric jazz bass a LEAD instrument for the first (and last?) time. But awesome technique blahdiblah in this case also made for hours and yards of yawnsome noodling and a frankly horrible/wanky 'signature sound' that already sounds dated and howlingly empty, and when you look at the 'official' discog it now seems so slight and unfulfilled - I mean, no WAY is that first alb one of the greatest jazz whatsits of all time or whatever, but he certainly never made a better rec ('Word of Mouth' is a maybe more interesting, ambitious and at times surprisingly noizy alb, but the writing is mostly 2nd rate.)

Rhino/Warners have just issued a pretty comprehensive anthology called 'Punk Jazz', a title that annoys the piss out of me, even tho' I'm far from being a punk purist...

I think Stanley Clarke would dispute that statement.

Mr. Diamond is HELLA OTM in re: to Stanley Clarke, btw.

Stanley Clarke's solo stuff was so mid-range-y and had that far-too-mellow weather-channel music thing going on, but if you are a fan of the bass, you should DEFINITELY check out the album he did with George Duke. I forgot the name, but GOD DANG that there's one funky amazing album!

He's also on her next two records: 'Mingus' (which I think has more than a few great moments but also understand why some people wouldn't like it much; Jaco contributes horn arrangements to the song 'Dry Cleaner From Des Moines') and 'Shadows and Light' (double live album that I don't play very often).

And yet........as a couple of people have implied above, you have to ask the question, if he's a great musician, where's the great music? Where's the body of work? And the truth is, it's just not there. I agree that his first album is his best, but I doubt it's even one of the best 1000 jazz albums. He intermittently does wonderful things with Joni and Weather Report etc, but nothing that justifies a reputation as one of the jazz greats.

If you analyse the bass part in, say "Teen Town" it's not just wonderful chops, you know there's a staggering degree of sheer musical imagination. Neither Stanley or Jeff or any other electric bassist before or since could have conceived it. But the track as a whole is not great music, not in the way that some of the music that Jimmy Blanton or Scott Lafaro or Charlie Mingus played on is great music. Or Paul McCartney or James Jamerson.

Bassists in particular often lazily categorise Jaco as the Hendrix of bass, but the comparison doesn't hold up. In fact Hendrix wasn't Jaco's equal purely as a technician, but he managed to subordinate his virtuosity to an overall musical conception often enough to create a body of great music. Whether it was egocentricity, or bad luck, or a failure of taste Jaco never managed to be more than just the best bass player in the world.

Bring it bitch!

I think ArfArf is being too harsh on Pastorius. Sure, his body work of is lean, but that's because his true creative period lasted only about 5-7 years. (Doesn't that apply to Hendrix as well?) After that, it was ruined by his alcohol and drug abuse and, finally, death. One has to wonder what would've happened if he had lived and sobered up?

The biggest reason I think "Jaco Pastorius" is one of the greatest jazz albums ever is not even Pastorius' bass playing, but the ingenuity of the compositions and arrangements. I mean, every song on the album is great, and each of them sounds so different from the other, it's hard to ever get bored of that record.

So, as an arranger Pastorius' true strength shows. Take "Word Mouth", for example. Only on two tracks is the bass put on the forefront, on the other songs Pastorius just plays as a part of his big band. Also, what I like him most about him is that he defies categorization. In the era of jazz rock he never used guitars or synthesizers, and instead brought in such unlikely instruments as steel drums, harmonicas and french horns. I'm not sure whether tracks like "Okonkole y trompa" or "John and Mary" could even be called jazz, but at least they're unlike any jazz song I've ever heard.

Actually I thought I was somewhere in the middle between the folks who dismiss him as "self indulgent chops and no more" and the true believers. If I'm being harsh I don't know what Colin and Andrew L are being!

With just little thought I could produce a very, very long list of artists whose real creative period lasted no more than 5-7 years. Including The Beatles, Hendrix, yadda yadda.

Looking just at jazz bassists, Jimmy Blanton and Scott LaFaro were both dead by the time they were, what, 21? (I forget exactly) Bill Evans's Village Vanguard Sessions and the music in Ellington's Blanton/Webster Years genuinely rank among the greatest jazz music ever recorded. In both cases the bass playing revolutionised the concept of how the instrument should be played. You could make a similar claim for Jaco (although personally I'm not so convinced: Blanton and LaFaro's example raised the standard of jazz bass playing that came afterwards. Obviously Jaco had plenty of imitators as well but was his influence a good thing?).

In their brief creative periods Hendrix, McCartney, LaFaro, Blanton, Jamerson all created work that has been consistently accepted as among the masterpieces of their genre. I don't think anything Jaco recorded even begins to compare, except for bass players and hard-core jazz fusion fans.

(Incidentally I do like "Hejira" very much, and the bass playing is dazzling. If you pay particular attention to the bass playing using the word "genius" to describe it doesn't seem extravagant. And yet.....IMO with the quality of songs Mitchell was writing at that point in time she would have recorded a great album with or without Jaco. Her singing and even her idiosyncratic guitar style are more important to the album's overall sound than the bass playing. The album is great, the bass playing is great, but the album isn't great BECAUSE the bass playing is great. In later, lesser Mitchell albums it's not Jaco you miss, it's the quality of songs. It's different with the Evans or Ellington stuff - the Village Vanguard sessions would not have been great without LaFaro; and the leap in quality between immediately pre-Blanton Ellington and the stuff he recorded with Blanton is astounding. Like Hejira, the music is great, the bass playing is great, but the difference is that one of the major reasons music is great is BECAUSE the bass playing is great. And you could say the same for much of the Motown stuff Jamerson played on, or later Beatles stuff.)

Since I'm neither, let me elaborate on my point. I haven't been listening to to jazz until the last couple of years. Since I come from the world of electronic music, I'm not that interested in virtuoso playing or complex compositions, as I am to how the music sounds. I'm not a hardcore fusion fan, but I like fusion jazz because it tried to add new and previously uncovered sounds into jazz, which was about to face the same fate as classical music. I like synthesizer jazz, but synthesizer was more often used as a gimmick than as a way to expand musical horizons. Return to Forever is a good example of this (Herbie Hancock's "Sextant" serves as a counter-example).

Pastorius, however, didn't use synthesizer, but he nevertheless widened the sound world of jazz, not only by his imaginative bass playing, but (more importantly) by utilizing a wide spectrum of instruments, as well as production and arrangement techniques. As I said, the best thing in "Jaco Pastorius" (and "Word of Mouth", albeit to lesser extent) is that all the tracks sound different from each other, and also different from traditional jazz and jazz-rock.

A track like "Okonkole y trompa" sounds more like ambient than jazz to me; it's amazing Pastorius could create such a soundscape with merely an electric bass, a french horn and percussions. Or, as another example, take "Crisis" from "Word of Mouth". With that song, Pastorius (according to his biography) first recorded the bass track, then played only that to the soloists, who were recorded individually. So the soloists didn't know what the other soloists were playing, except on brief moments when Pastorius brought the some or all of the other tracks in. The result is a song that alters between chaos and moments of unison, with Pastorius' metronome electric bass being the only unifying factor.

It's weird, if you consider Pastorius' reputation, how little his bass playing is actually showcased on his solo albums. His playing is always beautiful, but there are only a couple of bass solos on "Jaco Pastorius" and "Word of Mouth"; especially on the latter Pastorius is mostly on the background. Herbie Hancock probably has more solos on those records than Pastorius does. I think Pastorius ultimately understood that being "the greatest electric bassist in the world" wasn't enough; in order to have great records you have to make great music.

It's also been a problem in terms of the development of the electric bass guitar (especially the fretless) that Jaco is ASSUMED to be the GREATEST EVER and the GREATEST THERE COULD EVER POSSIBLY BE, so that his relatively harmonically bland playing becomes a reference point by which plyers judge themselves and are judged. If you're looking for the new Jaco, you'll miss some other amazing bass guitarists out there.

Pastorius was apparently a victim of his own fame. According to his biography (which is a good read for those who like sad stories) he eventually began to believe "the greatest bass player ever" hype himself, and finally the gap between Jaco Pastorius the Bass God and Jaco Pastorius the Person was so big, that he collapsed under pressure.

I actually prefer the funkier bass playing style to Pastorius', and I think Stanley Clarke was technically better than him. It's just that just that Pastorius made better music.

Try Jamalaadeen Tacuma, although I fear his eighties material is hard to find, since it hasn't been reissued on CD. I'm not sure about the nineties records. Stanley Clarke is still the electric bassist for me, but he has to be in a good environment. His solo material is mostly indulgent and useless. Try the early Return to Forever records, or Airto's and Flora's seventies records. Alphonso Johnson is also a great funky player.

I know, I happen to be one of 'em myself. Unfortunately it doesn't make me one of the jazz bass greats.

One thing I do know from SS interviews is that he doesn't share your low opinion of Jaco. And Jaco's influence is all over Stomu's playing like a rash. Both these guys are bigger Jaco fans than I'll ever be. (I mean, have you actually read my fucking posts? I was the one getting stick for being "unfair" to JP, which it the reaction I normally get when I argue he's not on the same level as Blanton or Jamerson. My point is I can't deny Jaco has many of the characteristics of a remarkable talent but ultimately he doesn't do it for me. It's loopy that I'm having to defend this against a charge of being too pro Jaco, particularly by someone besotted by Stomu Takeishi.)

And I don't have a low opinion of Jaco -- I adore his playing on Hejira and Bright Size Life, for example, so search those -- but I do think that his importance as a bass player and especially as a musician has been wildly overstated and that worship of him is pernicious.

I also think that you're underestimating Swallow's uniqueness as a bassist and brilliance as a musician regardless of instrument, which is a little weird given your fandom.

Most of the reviews I've read of ST's playing, whether on record or live, reference Jaco, so it isn't just me that hears it. OK, you're going to say fretless bass guitar/lazy, musically illiterate reviewers etc and I'd be with you up to a point, but I don't believe it's that simple. Without Jaco, no Stomu, at least not as we know him.

This argument keeps coming up, so I have to ask: have you actually listened to his solo records? I don't know about his Weather Report stuff, I'm not familiar with that, but saying that he isn't playing in the service of music in his own records is simply wrong. Sure, there are a couple of (admittedly good) bass solos, but most of the times he simply plays as a part of the rhythm section, just like a bassist should. This claim would fit far better to Stanley Clarke.

The live record "Invitation" is worth tracking down. It is better than "Word of Mouth" and features the same band, but has been out of print in the US since the 80s. I've had it on tape since the 80s when my guitar teacher got me into alot of jazz.

like a real life SHRED SERIES CLIP

what a douche

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25DXcFg1TFo

i love that shit. he makes some beautiful sounds. he was the real deal.

he's barely tolerable on joni mitchell stuff but this isn't even good soloing it's just bleeby bleeby bloop ding DING ding

Joni has said that the reason she liked working with Jaco is that he was one of the only bassists she hired who didn't insist on playing the root.

mjt otm.

i love that shit. he makes some beautiful sounds.

OTM.

Anybody who does a school music workshop drunk as a skunk, refuses to play anything and then covers themselves in correction fluid is classic!

-- dave q, Wednesday, July 2, 2003 11:19 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Link

lol @ real life shreds. it kinda was

he's killing it here though. after the song he goes solo w/repeater delay on and fucks up some 3rd rock from the stone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm1jdhiwoZs

Not saying that Third Stone isn't awesome, but Portrait of Tracy is just gorgeous. Holy shit.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/story/2012-05-23/metallica-trujillo-movie-jaco-pastorius/55178046/1

I hope this is good. I don't know why Trujillo would want to interview Sting and Santana for it though.

Probably because (per Wikipedia):

After sneaking onstage at a Carlos Santana concert on September 11, 1987, and being ejected from the premises, Pastorius made his way to the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida. After reportedly kicking in a glass door after being refused entrance to the club, he was engaged in a violent confrontation with the club bouncer, Luc Havan. Pastorius was hospitalized for multiple facial fractures and injuries to his right eye and left arm. He fell into a coma and was put on life support.

There were initially encouraging signs that he would come out of his coma and recover, but a massive brain hemorrhage a few days later pointed to brain death. Pastorius died on September 21, 1987, aged 35, at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale and was buried at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale.

I mean, that doesn't explain Sting. Nothing explains Sting.

xp: oh shit. I didnt' know about the Santana concert.

Thread bump on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Jaco's death.

I'd play "Teen Town" in his honor, but I don't have the chops. I'll just listen to it instead, and aspire.

original discussion here is actually pretty interesting and has people going into what they actually mean about what they do/don't like about his style! then later it's people going "I hate him he sucks"

nu-ilm for ya

did anyone here see the film? is it worth it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYE-tm8UBSM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29R-QdnQNpw

came across this Holiday for Pans record, looks to have been released a considerable time after his passing. This is the first time I've heard any of his records, I'm guessing this isn't particulary representative? Posted it on the bobbins of the past thread before thinking he probably has his own thread