Jaco movie

[gearHed289]

As much of a 70s prog/fusion guy that I was (and am), I never followed Jaco. Amazing and oftentimes beautiful player, but most of the stuff he played on didn't really click with me. Wasn't into Weather Report. The Joni stuff was nice, but again, not really something I'd find myself reaching for. When I was about 18, my band did a cover of Midwestern Night's Dream off of Bright Size Life. I will see this movie at some point I'm sure, though Percy Jones with Brand X was my big fretless influence.

[nofi]

there are lots of vids with kids playing this stuff. the comment section brings out all the jazz experts and haters. funny and sad. not my thing but i do like miles davis 'fusiony' stuff like bitches brew and in a silent way. some warmth and soul remains in that music.

[Aussie Mark]

I realise I'm as white as the kid in the video, but I can't tap my foot to that.

[patman]

I think Jaco sort of got his start playing rock n roll and R n B in Wayne Cochran's CC riders...

[Rob]

I think Jaco sort of got his start playing rock n roll and R n B in Wayne Cochran's CC riders...

Yeah he did.
He would sit backstage when possible because he wouldn't dress like the rest of the act in MATCHING JUMPSUITS.
So . . . he's got that goin' for him

[Dave W]

I never even heard of Jaco back in the day, and once I did, never understood the appeal of his tone or technique. Definitely not my kind of music.

[Alanko]

I see there is a thread on TB for Jaco unbelievers to unite. Maybe we need one here. 

Some of the upset in the TB thread from Jaco fans is off the scale. To quote a particularly ripe example:

"well maybe one of you genuises that don't 'get' JP will do something remotely approaching innovation. there has been such an emense dumbing down across the whole society that most of you wouldn't even hear the changes to many of the compositions. So, just keep doing what you're doing if it works for you.

I lived through those times and even knew JP. It was exciting as we went to work, 6 nights/week (yep thats right), and always tried to be better every night - we were intense.

I'm extremely open minded so when one of you breaks through the noise make sure to post. I've been waiting."

In my opinion you cannot complain about a perceived mass dumbing down of society (Boomerese for 'things were better in my day', which is the wistful nostalgia I thought y'all were rebelling against in the first place), then misspell "immense", "geniuses" and "that's".

And again, what is with the dick-waving statement of playing six shows a week? All that hard work and you are still an anonymous forum troll? Maybe you weren't that good a musician, otherwise we would have heard of you. You always tried to be better every night? You were wasting your time, because it didn't pay off in any meaningful way. Sorry!

I'm a fan of Chris Squire. If somebody started a thread titled "I don't get the hype surrounding Chris Squire" then I wouldn't make it my life's mission to insult and call out all of those that claimed not to see the appeal in Squire's bass playing. "Come back when you can come up with an original bass line as Long Distance Run Around, cretin". Why bother?

Speaking as an angry millennial, if I am part of a dumber society it is because Boomers kept voting for the political parties that promised to cut education spending. Not my fault in any way! I also find it hard to believe that the best music in all of human history just happened to occur when Boomers were in college. I further fail to see how any of that correlates with my apparent inability to follow the changes in the sort of saccharine, sappy lift muzak that Weather Report and co happened to make. As I've said before, a corner of the bass community, robustly overrepresented on Talkbass, grants tacky '80s jazz fusion music with a completely unwarranted hegemony over all other forms of music and bass playing. Half the videos that get posted over there of up-and-coming bassists are younger guys playing dated-sounding Quiet Storm-style soul/jazz fusion music. Honestly, by the time that every new beginner keyboard had a 'fretless' patch that aped that nasal, chorus'd Jaco tone, the wannabe Berklee crowd should have known the game was up.

All these guys clambering over each other to tell their 'I worked with Jaco' story, but not one of them thought to take him to a shrink or moderate his drink or drugs intake. 

[nofi]

maybe 'six nights a week' meant working at the local tin can factory. btw you did a great job of explaining the mind set over at tb.

[Alanko]

I never fitted in over there.  Too poor, too British/Scottish and I like all the wrong bassists.

The closest I got was a thread some guy started about Ray Shulman from Gentle Giant. I was poised to say all sorts of nice things about a bassist I greatly admire. Instead it turned out the thread starter wanted to talk about his tenuous link to the album artwork of Gentle Giant's Civilian album.

I've not seen that poster over there for a while. He was some complete kook called 'Arthritic Tom' who was apparently infirm, blind, deaf and was presumably typing (a billion forum and blog posts a day) using his nose or something. He had a couple of threads titled 'Interviewing famous bassists', that were mostly filler, promotions for his book (which the mods didn't seem to mind), and tantalising posts to the tune of 'if you are all nice to me I will tell you my Gene Simmons story'. The guy seemed to live for having smoke constantly blown up his ass, but he had some completely bizarre notions on his personal relationship with the handful of bassists he ever interviewed (there were a some disturbingly homoerotic posts about Scott Thunes playing mind games with the OP). Basically Thunes, Gene Simmons, Ray Schulman and some minor league hair metal guys were about the only bassists he ever interviewed.

Joke is on TB though, as his personal website went from documenting ghost cat sightings to some seriously off-the-deep-end pro-Israel conspiracy ranting. His 'evidence' being re-posted across the pro-Israeli blogosphere. Nothing wrong with taking a stance, but this guy was seriously wacko, and I see his posts have been quietly unpinned on TB.

[Dave W]

I love it when jazz guys get on their high horses. They know what good music is, and by God, they're going to let us know all about how much better it is than anything we like!

Never spent much time at TB but I've seen that "my friend Jaco" and "I played with Jaco" crap at various forums over the years. Amazing how many friends he had. 

I also find it hard to believe that the best music in all of human history just happened to occur when Boomers were in college.

I'm one of the oldest boomers and I never believed that. It's just the usual arrogance of older generations, just as many adults in the 50s never tired of telling us how their music was superior and rock 'n' roll was just noise.

[patman]

There's all kinds...

You just have to be open-minded and tolerant...like here, the guys just a little bit younger than me like different stuff (Kiss Metallica etc.) than I do...

Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like the guys from Europe also have different tastes (more metal?)...

That's what makes it fun...

Not all jazz is good music. Not all jazz is boring and irrelevant. Some is sublime.

[4stringer77]

Wow, it's like these guys read my mind. Yeah Alanko, who solos with a loop pedal anymore? 
http://www.notreble.com/buzz/2015/12/01/jaco-pastorius-third-stone-from-the-sun/

[nofi]

jaco fans seem to approve of this guy as well. from mars volta.



i assume he can play without pedals.

[Dave W]

^^^ I made it to the 45 second mark.

[uwe]

I made it a bit longer, it's okayish, but I'd take his compressor away. Why so many bassists insist on playing with one and feel that is benefits their sound is beyond me, to me it's a music deadener. I don't even use one with an octaver (as is always recommended).