Jaco Playing Chromatic Fantasy Live in California

Before Jaco went back to Florida (where he would eventually die) he played in the San Francisco bay area with drummer Brian Melville and even recorded an album with him.

This clip is from that time period, and although not the Jaco from 10 years before, it is still amazing what he could do. It looks like he is playing his famous Bass of Doom but with a fretted neck on it instead of a fretless.

This might be the only footage of Jaco ever playing his adaptation of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy. Watch a bit of history.

Jaco In Seattle...from 1976

This must be from the first Weather Report tour with Jaco in the band. Here is a pretty decent audience recording of Jaco taking a solo in front of the Wayne Shorter tune "Lusitanos".

You can hear some classic Jaco-isms in his solo - pentatonic runs in odd note groupings, playing all the color tones and extensions, and of course, the tone and the groove. Oh the groove.

This was at the Paramount West Theatre in Seattle on May 27th, in 1976, so Jaco was just starting to be heard by the world.

Dean Schmidt Live with Kelly Ash

I have posted some clips of Seattle bassist Dean Schmidt before, and here is a new recording from a club in Seattle called Lucid, that records every show and then posts them to Bandcamp. Living in the future is so cool. Check out some of the other sessions they have posted for some of the other acts in Seattle.

This recording is a quartet that has New York (ex-seattle) vocalist Kelly Ash and includes Eric Verlinde on piano, and Jose Martinez on drums. These guys are all some of the top players in Seattle and gig a lot. Like every night a lot. This entire band is sick. This gig was last week so this is fresh stuff.

New Gary Willis Tune, "Change Agent" Live

From Gary's upcoming CD, he tears through a tune called "Change Agent" with his new trio consisting of Albert Bover on keyboards and Gergo Borlai on drums. A serious solo in there, folks.

Happy B-Day Ray Riendeau

Ray does some crazy slapping all-righty. But he does it in a very musical way. In this video he breaks down how to play triads and other arpeggios with his techniques, and he doesn't just do it E Minor either!

Rumor has it he has an instructional DVD coming out...

Happy B-Day Ray, and thanks for being willing to share what you know with all of us.

Pollici de' Ridiculoso!



He takes THAT and turns it into THIS:

Janek & Bob Reynolds Live Tonight on the Internets

Bob Reynolds, a piasian de Basso as our regular readers may know, is in Charlotte, N.C. tonight doing a gig which includes Janek Gwizdala on bass, a bassist that some bloggers up in here have a man-crush on, er, musically speaking, of course. Anyway,  the show is going to be live streamed so check it out:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bob-reynolds-live

The show goes live at 10:30 PM EST, that is 3:30 PM GMT. You can convert the time to wherever you are here - http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/usa/eastern-time/convert/.

Listen to Bob and Janek throw down in your jammies. I mean, listen to them play while you are wearing your pajamas.

Hadrian Destroying It At the Baked Potato

Good Lord. Utterly terrifying.

Hadrian Feraud taking a solo "Marching Powder" at The Baked Potato in Los Angeles (his new home town, apparently).

Jon Burr - Live at Smalls

Check out Jon Burr from a live trio gig at Smalls with guitarist Howard Alden.

Jon has played with some serious heavyweights - Stan Getz, Chet Baker, Horace Silver, Hank Jones, Art Farmer, Stephane Grappelli, Sir Roland Hanna, Buddy Rich, (a tough gig, no doubt, if you have ever heard the infamous bus tapes) he was Tony Bennett's bassist for 5 years, and has also worked with Anita O 'Day, Rita Moreno, and Eartha Kitt.

That's quite a list.

You can hear why he has played with all those folks in this live recording.

Jon Burr At Smalls

Janek with Bob Reynolds at the Blue Note

Very nice. Janek is one of my favorite players these days.

Check out both players in detail at:

http://www.bobreynoldsmusic.com
http://www.janekgwizdala.com