Jaco Pastorius Archives - Page 12

We recently got our hands on Go For It, the latest release by bassist Frans Vollink and his trio, One Spirit. One Spirit is a high powered jazz/fusion trio and brain-child of Vollink and drummer Sebastiaan Cornelissen, with Flying Dutchman guitarist Richard Hallenbeek joining as a new permanent member. Go For It released in April, 2009, and features guest appearances...

Singer and bassist Jack Bruce was made a Doctor of Letters by Glasgow Caledonian University. Bruce is 66 years old and a founding member of the band Cream with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker. Bruce was quoted saying: “I dropped out and became a professional musician when I was very young, I just wanted to get on with it really...

As we celebrate Independence Day today in the U.S., we decided to look around for videos of Jaco Pastorius performing his landmark arrangement of “America The Beautiful”, aka “Amerika”. Along the way, we discovered this gem by bassist Neftali López: Have a safe and happy Fourth!

Check out Tom Kennedy taking care of business on “The Chicken”, a song most people think was written by Jaco Pastorius. (It was written by Pee Wee Ellis, a member of James Brown’s band, though Jaco made it famous). Holy smokes!

After a day of teaching at Mile High Bass Camp, Damian Erskine and Ray Riendeau took a break to play together. In this segment, Damian solos over Pat Metheny’s “Bright Sized Life”. The only problem with this video is that it isn’t long enough. I wonder if Damian picked up something from the bassist on Bright Sized Life’s original recording,...

Right up until the end of his life, Joe Zawinul could still bring it (and pick bass players). Check out the Zawinul Syndicate’s version of Weather Report’s “Fast City”, a tune originally recorded for the Jaco Pastorius-era Night Passage album. Bassist Linley Marthe is a monster on this one. This clip comes from the Syndicate’s “75th” DVD. I was lucky...

Jaco Pastorius, the “World’s Greatest Bass Player,” is being honored by another grass-roots effort to continue the preservation of his memory, influence and music, in the form of a Jaco Pastorius commemorative stamp. The online petition can be found here for showing your support and approval. Be sure to check out the grass-roots Oakland Park MySpace page. Other great jazz...

A bass owned by classically trained bassist and concert promoter Rod Glaubman and played by Jaco Pastorius is being offered up at auction. We’re not sure we buy the whole story, but from what we’ve gathered, Jaco borrowed this bass frequently, and possibly modified it. As the story goes, Glaubman allowed some modifications, but stopped short of letting Jaco de-fret...

Today’s featured vid showcases the bass playing skills of Giovanni Scarabel and his band, Collage. They didn’t pick any easy tune to record either. The chose “Reza” by Jaco Pastorius. We think you’ll enjoy.

On March 13, drummer Kenwood Dennard held a tribute for his former band mate, Jaco Pastorius at the Regattabar in Boston, Massachusetts. The event featured twelve musicians playing from Jaco’s vast library of tunes. Dennard, who served as emcee, opened the performance by announcing, “I want to introduce you to Jaco’s spontaneous attitude,” and jumped into a drum riff to...

Alphonso Johnson is a favorite of ours, and he proves once again how Joe Zawinul really knew how to pick bass players. Alphonso was replaced by Jaco Pastorius, and both appeared on Weather Report’s Black Market. Many people think Jaco held down the bass for the title track, but it was indeed Alphonso Johnson. Jaco performed on two of the...

As we reported earlier, the new Jaco Pastorius Community Center opened on March 5, 2009. Here’s a video of the event, with some photo slideshow at the end: Kudos to the people of Oakland Park.