Top 10: The Best Jaco Pastorius Covers and Play-Along Videos
August marks the 35th anniversary of the debut of Jaco Pastorius‘ first album, the self-titled Jaco Pastorius. Do a quick search on Youtube, and you’ll find Jaco’s influence is as strong as ever.
In celebration, we’ve taken a look back at all of the Jaco covers and playalongs we’ve posted here on No Treble. Here are the top 10, based on reader views.
1. Mina Burnside: 14 Year Old Bassist Tackle’s Jaco Pastorius’ “Portrait of Tracy”
Mina Burnside is a 14 year old bassist from Nashville who began playing three and a half years ago. In this clip, she takes on a monster of a bass tune: Jaco Pastorius’ “Portrait of Tracy”. We love seeing (and sharing!) the many young players who demonstrate their dedication and willingness to tackle some tough…
2. Teen Town: BassGirl’s Jaco Pastorius Bass Cover
BassGirl is back! After wowing everyone with her transcription and performance of Tal Wilkenfeld’s lines on Jeff Beck’s “Cause We’ve Ended As Lovers“, BassGirl has taken on the monster of a tune, Jaco Pastorius’s “Teen Town”. “My humble tribute to one of the most amazing bass players ever,” the bassist said, as well as announcing…
3. Will Lee and Darryl Jones: Teen Town
Check out bassists Will Lee and Darryl Jones performing Jaco’s “Teen Town” in unison! Joining the duo is a killer line up including Kenwood Dennard on drums, Delmar Brown on Hammond, Clifford Carter on keys, David Mann?on sax and Oz Noy on guitar.
4. Doug Johns: Continuum/Bass Solo
Here’s a great clip of Doug Johns performing one of his infamous bass solos at the drum set. Doug calls it the “monkey show”. He starts with a rendition of the Jaco Pastorius tune “Continuum” before launching into an all out funk attack. The video was shot at One Mind Studios in 2009.
Here’s another great video of Gary Willis performing during a 2006 clinic in Rotterdam. This time, he’s playing the Pee Wee Ellis tune, “The Chicken”, popularized of course by Jaco Pastorius.
6. Christian McBride: “Havona” Solo on Electric Bass
Christian McBride is one of those rare bassists who switch from upright to electric and back with ease. We more frequently see (and feature) him playing upright, but this one was too fun to pass up. Here’s a fan shot video of McBride taking a solo break to Jaco Pastorius’ “Havona”.
7. Jaco Pastorius Birthday 2009: Invitation
Family and friends of Jaco Pastorius held their annual birthday party for him at the A1A Dive Bar in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on December 5th. The band included Jaco’s twin sons, bassist Felix Pastorius and drummer, Julius Pastorius. Here’s a couple of videos from the performance. What starts out as warming up quickly turns into…
8. Chris Tiger Ellis: Teen Town
Our Facebook friend and bassist Chris Tiger Ellis posted a video over the weekend of his take on the Jaco Pastorius/Weather Report tune “Teen Town”. “I just wanted to play Teen Town,” Ellis said. “I used my bridge pickup with my trebles all the way down. I put my little twist on it too but…
9. Edmond Gilmore: Havona play-along
Bassist Edmond Gilmore set out to demo his gear with this performance of Jaco Pastorius’s “Havona”, which is cool. But we had a hard time focusing on the rig, since he nailed the tune. Edmond shares, “This is My FBASS VF-5 with my Markbass classic 300 rig. I’m playing Jaco’s Havona to show that you…
10. Alessio Tori: In France They Kiss on Main Street playalong
Alessio Tori, aka ato71, has quite a few bass playalong videos on his channel, and they’re all killer. Here’s Alessio taking on one of the biggies… Jaco’s killer line from Joni Mitchell’s live Shadows & Light performance of “In France They Kiss on Main Street”. Alessio shares, “Maybe I dared too much but this is…
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