Newly Shared: Jaco Pastorius’s Spellbinding Solo During Herbie Hancock’s 1977 Tour

One of my favorite recordings is Herbie Hancock Quartet’s 1977 performance with Jaco Pastorius at the Ivanhoe Theater.

The Jaco Pastorius Archive dropped a recording from another stop on that tour, which took place on February 21, 1977 at Western Michigan University’s James W. Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

JPA shares the details:

“Weather Report took a short break around the 1976 holiday season, playing their last show of 1976 on September 26 or October 16, before resuming on April 1, 1977. During that time, Jaco performed live with Albert Mangelsdorff and Alphonse Mouzon at the 1976 Berliner Jazztage, did a couple of trio shows with Joni Mitchell and Bobbye Hall, and from December 1976 to March 1977, toured in the Herbie Hancock Quartet. The Herbie tour produced at least six known recordings: a mysterious Atlanta recording referenced only on threeviews.com; a soundboard recording from January or February; soundboard and radio broadcast recordings from Chicago (February 16); an audience recording from Champaign (February 20 or 24), and this, an audience recording from Kalamazoo (February 21), which I’ll share in its complete form once I have restored all of it.

“During these shows with Herbie (if not earlier; there are no known live recordings of Weather Report from late 1976), Jaco brought Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Third Stone from the Sun’ into the mix, which would soon become a staple in his solos. Also featured is ‘Portrait of Tracy’ from his 1976 debut album, which served as the foundation for most of his unaccompanied bass solos between 1976 and 1977, including this one. It would later be performed alongside the looping segment of his solos, before mostly disappearing until his final tour almost a decade later in December 1986.

“I think that Jaco’s phrasing and tone are on point here. Not as staccato, thin-sounding, or predictable as many of his solos in Weather Report—so closer to his style some years prior, which is my favourite Jaco. He would somewhat return to that style for January–March 1984, which is definitely a period I’ll explore in future videos.”