Jaco Pastorius

I seriously doubt there is a single electric bass player who don't know who Jaco Pastorius is. Whether or not you play (or even dig) jazz, you have to give Jaco his props! His first album, Jaco Pastorius, is, as Pat Metheny put it, "...without question the most auspicious debut album of the past quarter century..." and, along with Word of Mouth, is a study on what can be done with an electric bass, expanded harmonies and a big band.

One great but relatively unknown project of was an instructional video called Modern Electric Bass [VHS]. You can now get it on DVD, too. along with exercises and the like, it includes some really great jams with John Scofield and Kenwood Dennard. I can't even begin to count how many times I've watched that video (I have it on VHS even though I no longer own a VCR). This was my introduction to the energy of an improvisational performance and Scofield and Dennard blew my hair back every time I saw it. Remember, this was mid 90's and the internet was ssslllllooooowwwww and unreliable so this type of media wasn't readily available.

Here is a clip from the video where the dream trio plays one of Jaoc's most popular tunes, The Chicken. Enjoy.



I put together a list of esential Jaco recordings. Check them out and let me know what you think!