The Book of Jaco – the Ultimate Compendium of the Genius of Jaco Pastorius

The Book of Jaco - the Ultimate Compendium of the Genius of Jaco PastoriusBassist Mike Cornelison spent years of intense study on the work of Jaco Pastorius while studying at Musicians Institute. After graduating MI with honors, Cornelison began compiling his studies and ultimately put together a book including 26 of the late bassist’s lines from various albums and acts over his career.

The Book of Jaco – the Ultimate Compendium of the Genius of Jaco offers a note-for-note transcription of all 26 songs in standard notation. The 81 page book also includes performance notes and a discography of Jaco’s other works.

The music was selected from Jaco’s 1976 solo debut, Jaco Pastorius, Pat Metheny’s Bright Size Life, Joni Mitchell’s Hejira and Mingus, Weather Report’s Black Market, Heavy Weather, Mr. Gone, Night Passage, Weather Report, Jaco’s Word of Mouth, Invitation / Twins and his album with Bireli Lagrene, Stuttgart Aria.

The Book of Jaco is available only through BassBooks.com.

The Book of Jaco Song List:

  1. A Remark You Made
  2. Amerika
  3. And Then
  4. Barbary Coast
  5. Birdland
  6. Black Crow
  7. Bright Size Life
  8. Cannonball
  9. Chromatic Fantasy
  10. Come On, Come Over
  11. Continuum
  12. Crisis
  13. Dara Factor Two
  14. Donna Lee
  15. Havona
  16. Mr. Gone
  17. Opus Pocus
  18. Palladium
  19. Port of Entry
  20. Portrait of Tracy
  21. Punk Jazz
  22. River People
  23. Soul Intro / The Chicken
  24. Stuttgart Aria I
  25. Teen Town
  26. The Dry Cleaner from Des Moines

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  1. 26 gold bars in a portable bound format. Excellent way to invest your money during the crisis.

  2. Hey all you Jaco fans this you might find interesting.

  3. Seems great but seriously the notation is awful…

  4. What’s so bad about the notation? Yes it looks hand done but very cleanly. I find hand written stuff much easier to read at times then typical computer made sheet music. I seem to pay more attention to what is written and it flows easier. In any event, it’s readable and I’m definitely going to get it.

  5. Just wanted to say that I have just bought it and looking at it, although it looks all hand written (which I personally like) it seems very complete jsut taking a quick look through some of the runs and the it seems to be very thorough.

  6. This book is absolute crap , very wrong & awfully notated.

    • Haha tellin’ it like it is Steve!

    • A student photocopied it for me about 15 yrs ago , & while i’m sure the guy who wrote it has his heart in the right place ; it really is terrible , in every way !

    • I can see where his rhythms are off in some major ways after looking a bit better at it, but are there any major problems with the notes themselves? I haven’t sat down and really done much more than look through some notes through Portrait I was having problems with and Havona. For me I use iti as a note reference, not a rhythm reference so if/when I find note mistakes it’s easy enough to mark them. Hell, if it is truly as bad as you say, you should use it as a teaching reference for students to find mistakes, make corrections, and use for deciphering rhythms and correctly notating them. I’ll be taking a very deep look at it in the coming days and see how bad it is. I always take notation with a grain of salt since so many people interpret things in so many different ways.

    • But other than those few minor details…

  7. Bought the book, and have to say I felt really disappointed at it, mainly because I was expecting to see written harmony…