Anyone can play a fretless

[jps]

Who need a stinkin' band to do Teen Town?

[ajish4]

LOL,

Makes me WISH I didn't hear that guy playing that WISH BASS!

Sounded like two pigs making bacon when if first started!

[wayang]

Don't know if I'd call Zawinul, Shorter and Erskine a "stinkin' band", Jeff, but I get your point...

(...and ya know, that's Jaco himself on the drum kit in the studio version...)

[jps]

Peter was sick that day?

Jaco started out on drums till he had an accident that kept him from doing so on a continual bassis. His dad was a drummer.

[wints]

I'll take Jaco's feel over anything here, including MM's technical ability. There bass before Jaco, and then after...

Wrap it up in that ARYM track and it simply doesn't get any better IMO. At 4.15 on, with Joe tinkling away, just listen to that background phrasing...

Brilliant is merely an understatement...

And to think that some people still believe 4 strings can't get it done...

[wayang]

Peter was sick that day?

No...it would've been Alex Acuna...I know if I were the drummer in a band and the bass player sat down at the kit and played a groove like Jaco did on TT, I might feel a little ill...but I don't think Alex had anything to worry about.

Brilliant is merely an understatement...

I quite agree, Wints, I quite agree...

[basmansam]

Michael Manring actually studied with jaco, he's obviously a big influence. My favorite Jaco is Volcano for Hire. Unbelievable playing those 16th notes only like Jaco could. My favorite electric bass player period. The only one that comes close is NHOP.

[cassius987]

I'll take Jaco's feel over anything here, including MM's technical ability. There bass before Jaco, and then after...

As much as I hate cliche and idol worship anywhere, including bass guitar culture, this is definitely true. Listen to the album Mingus by Joni Mitchell--who would've thought to groove like that over her work? Jaco SPOKE bass. That's what it was. He didn't need a tongue anymore because he had his instrument.

[rictified]

Michael Manring actually studied with jaco, he's obviously a big influence. My favorite Jaco is Volcano for Hire. Unbelievable playing those 16th notes only like Jaco could. My favorite electric bass player period. The only one that comes close is NHOP.

I'm sure I'm in the minority here but I liked bass pre-Jaco better. I prefer James Jamerson over any of the modern bass wizards, he played with an upright feel. I do really like Stanley Clark though.

[wayang]

I love the bass...before, during and after Jaco. So many cats have played so well, yet it remains a fascinating territory for exploring and redifining 'fundament'...

[teb]

I'm old-fashioned, but I'm with Bob on this one. The modern bass solos just sound mostly like a bunch of rapid-fire bunny farts to me. While it's certainly impressive that these guys can move and coordinate their fingers so quickly, I get tremendously bored with what they're playing in about fifteen seconds, and if one of my basses started to put out tone like that, I'd take it apart to find out what's wrong with it? In many ways, they strike me more as frustrated lead guitarists than bass players and I often find myself wondering what they think they're doing for the song? If I want to hear great bass lines that really contribute to the overall sound of the song, I think of bands like The Zombies, Animals, Beatles, The Who, or bassists like John McVie, who's bass lines were a driving force behind the sound of Fleetwood Mac without being overly flashy. Even Timothy Schmidt of the Eagles, who is rarely flashy, manages to put down a very solid foundation for the rest of the band. Personally, I judge bass players' true skills by how well they can do that, rather than by how many notes they can cram into a fifteen minute solo. I used to know a lead player with tremendous finger speed. The only problem was that he didn't seem to know what to do with it to generate a tasty solo. The standing joke was that he had musical diharrhea. A lot of modern "genius-level" bass playing sounds just about the same to me. Oh well, different strokes for different folks and luckily there is enough music out there for everybody to find plenty of stuff that they like.

[basmansam]

I'm old-fashioned, but I'm with Bob on this one. The modern bass solos just sound mostly like a bunch of rapid-fire bunny farts to me. While it's certainly impressive that these guys can move and coordinate their fingers so quickly, I get tremendously bored with what they're playing in about fifteen seconds, and if one of my basses started to put out tone like that, I'd take it apart to find out what's wrong with it? In many ways, they strike me more as frustrated lead guitarists than bass players and I often find myself wondering what they think they're doing for the song? If I want to hear great bass lines that really contribute to the overall sound of the song, I think of bands like The Zombies, Animals, Beatles, The Who, or bassists like John McVie, who's bass lines were a driving force behind the sound of Fleetwood Mac without being overly flashy. Even Timothy Schmidt of the Eagles, who is rarely flashy, manages to put down a very solid foundation for the rest of the band. Personally, I judge bass players' true skills by how well they can do that, rather than by how many notes they can cram into a fifteen minute solo. I used to know a lead player with tremendous finger speed. The only problem was that he didn't seem to know what to do with it to generate a tasty solo. The standing joke was that he had musical diharrhea. A lot of modern "genius-level" bass playing sounds just about the same to me. Oh well, different strokes for different folks and luckily there is enough music out there for everybody to find plenty of stuff that they like.

It's nice to know opinion however, all those notes are actually connected harmonically, rhythmically. If you check out a ballad at a slow tempo you will understand what I'm talking about, not a bunch of music diarrhea. We are also talking about different styles of music. Big difference between a 3- 4 chord song and tune like A Remark You Made or even an old tune like Body and Soul. I play upright and bass guitar. I definitely come from the less is more school soloing and as a bass player you play what the song requires not an ego trip that doesn't fit. Oh well that's my opinion -

[ricosound]

I'm old-fashioned, but I'm with Bob on this one. The modern bass solos just sound mostly like a bunch of rapid-fire bunny farts to me. While it's certainly impressive that these guys can move and coordinate their fingers so quickly, I get tremendously bored with what they're playing in about fifteen seconds, and if one of my basses started to put out tone like that, I'd take it apart to find out what's wrong with it? In many ways, they strike me more as frustrated lead guitarists than bass players and I often find myself wondering what they think they're doing for the song? If I want to hear great bass lines that really contribute to the overall sound of the song, I think of bands like The Zombies, Animals, Beatles, The Who, or bassists like John McVie, who's bass lines were a driving force behind the sound of Fleetwood Mac without being overly flashy. Even Timothy Schmidt of the Eagles, who is rarely flashy, manages to put down a very solid foundation for the rest of the band. Personally, I judge bass players' true skills by how well they can do that, rather than by how many notes they can cram into a fifteen minute solo. I used to know a lead player with tremendous finger speed. The only problem was that he didn't seem to know what to do with it to generate a tasty solo. The standing joke was that he had musical diharrhea. A lot of modern "genius-level" bass playing sounds just about the same to me. Oh well, different strokes for different folks and luckily there is enough music out there for everybody to find plenty of stuff that they like.

I'm with Todd. I can't listen to that MM clip above, it makes me ill. Give me Jamerson, Babbitt, Kaye, or Dee Murray, the engine behind 1000's of great pop songs. But now we're no longer talking about fretless players and yes pop is not Jazz. Jaco is Jaco, nuff said

[wayang]

Different strokes, indeed...the Manring clip doesn't make me ill, I think it sounds great...but that's primarily because of the strength of the tune. Those changes are amazing, and don't remind me of anything else I've ever heard. It works for me every time, no matter who's playing it. Thanks again, Jaco...

Music is not an athletic competition, I quite agree, but neither is it a 'color-inside-the-lines' contest. Bass is great at being the big slab of concrete 'foundation' on which to stack the elements of the classic pop tune 'house', but it can, if approached carefully and 'artistically', just as successfully be the ornately carved angel or gargoyle at the top of the 'cathedral'. It's all in the mind and hands of the player to make that happen, and a relentless stream of notes that means nothing is just that: nothing. At the other end of the irritation scale for me...I played in a cover band just to make some bread when I was a kid, and being in Arizona, that meant lots of the dreaded Doobie Bros. and Eagles. I swear to g*d, if I ever have to try to stay awake through the 'drivin' across Kansas' changes in "Take It Easy" again...but thankfully, that's not gonna happen...

Before we go laying the blame at Jaco's doorstep for having the nerve to think that the bass didn't have to stay in the 'basement' (or Squire, or any bassist in 'the modern era'), we have to re-examine the work of a man named Mingus...and again I say, it's not about the high or low number of notes-per-minute you're playing."That's too many" or "that's not enough"...what's the point of these restrictions? What's being played, what's being said, that's what counts. It must be possible to love the work of both Jamerson and Pastorius, because watch this...I'm doin' it right now.

"Teen Town" go racing by a little too fast for your taste and make you a bit queasy? That's fine, but it might be your problem, not the tune's. Not every ride at the carnival's fun for everyone...that's why you buy yourself an "E" ticket and wander around looking for what'll make you the happiest. But what Jaco does with "A Remark You Made"...if that doesn't just about reduce you to tears in the finest way musically possible, I can't imagine what would.

[rictified]

Who need a stinkin' band to do Teen Town?

All I can say about this is: wow! I'm going to get me an Echoplex, Oh, they don't make those anymore? No this is unbelievable, my Peruvian merengue loving wife even watched the whole thing. I'd like to think that we can state our preferences here without being personally attacked, that would be nice and would keep it peaceful. I did not mean to start an incipient war, those days are long over for me. Peace.