Whether you like the guy and his playing or not, he was of course a pivotal figure and not just in the fusion scene either. There can never be enough pivotal bassists in my view. I would imagine that the documentary is interesting, he was after all an interesting, complex man. And he stuck to his guns with his unorthodox playing style. It's not bass playing as we know it (or knew it, he certainly left his mark), but then in a band with Zawinul's right hand giving sufficient low frequencies support, you were allowed to go off on a tangent. No Weather Report line up I remember ever had a guitarist, Jaco used that to take a guitar-type role and Zawinul let him - it's all good then.
Jaco's style and approach is a million miles from mine - fretless, effects-drenched, finger player, that bony just before the bridge playing, fusion background, a timing- and groove approach that could have suited an (albeit rhythmically suave) jazz guitarist or even horn player, AND THEN ALL THAT ON A FENDER PRODUCT!!! -, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the guy. If your playing manages to impress people as diverse as Joe Zawinul, Joni Mitchell and Ian Hunter and you set off a generational craze (count me in!) with bassists yanking out their frets and covering their fretboards with bowling paint or boat varnish (or whatever it was), you must be doing something right.
I think that was a very balanced view of
someone an
aging nostalgic boomer who is not really attracted to Jaco's style at all and will forever prefer Return to Forever's more adolescent, muscular jazz rock to the esoteric academia of Weather Report.
