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Teen Town
Headphones if you got 'em.
This is just my take on a classic old Weather Report song. It's also a tribute to the late, great John Francis Anthony 'Jaco' Pastorius. I will never forget the night I met the man, and shook the hand that wrote this.
Comments
This is interesting. Did you play the line or import it somehow. It has a retro feeling… like the eighties, maybe? Lakota Shifrin, perhaps, cause of the bongos.
Wow. Such attention to the details. I hope everyone has heard the original work to hear the dedication in creating this version from scratch.
FYI jaco also played the drums along with the epic bass part.
@Paulieworld : very cool!
FYI, Jaco laid down the drum track first (no click)... because he didn't feel the drummer Weather Report was using swung har enough. He heard the bass part in his mind's ear. All the other parts were laid down after drums and bass. Jaco was originally a drummer and took up bass while recovering from a broken shoulder or collarbone (soccer accident) because he was frustrated about not being able to make music properly (he felt like he couldn't hot the drums hard enough).
I had a fairly accurate transcription and I punched it in with the piano roll editor in Cubasis. Believe it or not, my original intention was to arrange it as a string quartet. The end result was less than spectacular, so I just started adding parts. Thanks for listening. Have a good one!
I still remember the day I first heard this. I'm a former bass player and I thought I was pretty good. I was copying Stanley Clarke riffs note for note. When I played this it was truly humbling. Not long after that, I pulled out the frets! @McD Thanks for posting the original for reference. Have a great day!
@Paulieworld : I watched interviews a few years ago with the guys that were the pre-eminent funk and jazz and studio bass players at the time and they all said that the first time they heard Jaco (for some it was Weather Report, for some Bright Size Life) they knew the standard of excellence for bass had been re-defined.
FYI , the great drummer Steve Gadd once remarked that this was his favorite drum track of all time. If you listen closely you can hear that all the drum parts were overdubbed separately.
I like your take on this. I imagine I would have been incredibly excited to meet him as well. Great tribute piece.
It was great! I actually saw them 2 nights in a row. I was in my last year at NIU and me and my friend Rick went to to see them at the Auditorium Theater in Chicago the night before. The next night they played at the Duke Ellington Ballroom at NIU. The concert was as great as you would expect. They were touring the 8:30 album. I invited a drummer buddy to come out with me. After the show, Steve said 'let's go around back and see what's happening'. When we got there it was basically deserted. Their tour manager saw us and said 'Are you guys hungry?'. There was a huge spread of food and nobody to eat it! The first guy I met was Peter Erskine. He was a really cool and friendly guy. Next we met Shorter and Zawinul. They were both incredibly arrogant assholes. I mentioned that I saw them the night before. You would think they would have least said thanks. Zawinul just said 'Yeah, it was killer' and walked away. Finally I met Jaco himself. I introduced myself and told him I was a bass player and fan, but he was preoccupied with juggling apples from the food table. He was a good juggler! He was also stoned to the bone. I mean, totally out to lunch. I asked for an autograph and he said 'Where am I?'. I said you're in Dekalb, Illinois. He said 'Is that a city?'. I said 'Yeah'. Somehow I found a sheet of paper and he signed it 'Jaco Dekalb'. I still have it in my bass case. Good times!
Ha! Nice memory to have in your case and your life experiences.
Wow @Paulieworld , so well done.
What a load of work this must have been.
What year did you see/meet them?
I’m an NIU grad myself.
Hi Ben!
I believe that was 1980. NIU used to present some great talent. I also saw Return To Forever, Jean Luc Ponty, Pat Metheny, Jethro Tull, Tim Weisberg, and many others. We had some great bars that featured local bands - McCabes, Shamrock, Uprising, Red LIon, Andy's, etc. I played in a band called 'Tazz Rikki' and we played in all of the above. Good times, good friends, good music.
Thank you for listening. I don't think of this as 'work', so the time spent was all enjoyable. Some people build ships in bottles, I like to do this. I had always wanted to do this song. I actually learned the bass part and could pull it off convincingly. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a band that wanted to do it!
My wife and I like to drive out to NIU once a year just to hang out and have lunch at Hillside Restaurant. Yes, they are still in business despite Covid, and still serving up great food in an old-fashioned supper club setting.
Go Huskies!
Good arrangement @Paulieworld and nice story.
Great reimagining of the track… it sounds like you put an awful lot of effort into this one 👍
The diversity of your skills never cease to amaze me. This is Weather Report but it’s also @Paulieworld at the same time. I’ve said this before but you have an unmistakable style. If asked to analyse it I could not but for sure it’s there. Btw, I graduated NIU in ‘76. At the time it was a really special music school that emphasized getting outside the box creatively. Seems like it left its mark on you. Some of the fondest memories of my life there.
Yes, some effort, not to be confused with "work". I had a decent score sitting around for years and had long thought of doing a version one day. I was watching a Joni Mitchell video with Jaco and Pat Metheny and just thought, if not now, when? So I just started punching it into the piano roll editor in Cubasis. It's fun to hear it all start to come together. I enjoy the process. Enter a few notes, listen to it, add a few more, make a few edits, etc. etc. etc. Nice thing about doing a cover song is that you know when it's finished. It would be painfully boring for an observer to watch, but I love to sit there "staring a hole in my scrambled eggs" (J. Mitchell). Have a great day!
Thanks, that means a lot to me! I was not a music major, but I distinctly remember the incomparable, incredible NIU Jazz Ensemble and Fly By Night. If I'm not mistaken, you were a flute soloist on that album. I just realized that a few minutes ago after searching for the album and saw your name in the credits. It's an honor to speak with you, sir!!!
Although I wasn't a music major, I played in a local rock band and jammed with a few of the jazz dudes. I think Terry Connell was one of them. I did a recording session with him in the 80s. He was great. I was drunk.
People are starting to roll in, so I better get to work. Thanks again for the nice words. Stay in touch!
I wa busking in 1981 … Jaco gave us $10..We were playing John Coltrane’s “Moment’s Notice”.
https://ayler-records.bandcamp.com/album/two-in-nyc
RIP Arthur , ended up actually doing a trio gig w Jaco and Rashied Ali.
That must have been quite an experience. I met him briefly in 1980 and he still had all his marbles. I listened to you and Arthur playing Impressions. Amazing you were able to get a good recording on the streets of NYC. That was really good and brought back some nice memories. I used to play that one with some friends decades ago. We all had copies of 'The Real Book' and Impressions was always on the short list. I found a video of you playing at a venue called Smoke. Dude, you were on fire! Great playing. Have a good one!