To tie in with the Jaco Pastorius theme of this wee’s JAZZ LOCKDOWN mix, here’s a small feature about all thing’s Jaco.
Pastorius is by far one of the greatest and most influential Jazz bassists to have ever lived. His ability to play multitudes of styles and genres while still maintaining his signature sound is one many musicians work long and hard for. Jaco was always innovating new sounds on the bass. Not only did he rip the frets out of his fender jazz bass to approximate an upright tone, but pioneered the use of harmonics and bass chords which you can clearly hear on what is possibly Jaco’s most famous tune Portrait of Tracy off his eponymous debut album.
Jaco recorded his tutorial Modern Bass Guitar in 1985 which came with a book of exercises. The course shows Jaco’s approach to the bass guitar and really dives deep into his philosophy towards practice. Whether you play bass yourself or are just interested the video is an entertaining display of some great bass playing.