There's a Point Here Someplace
One thing caught my eye today. I was looking through an old Musician's Friend catalogue and noticed a replica Jaco Pastorius Fender Jazz bass selling for over three thousand dollars! And what you're paying for is their(Fender's)replication process. This is a "tribute bass": looks like(complete with chipped paint-!!), feels like, and hopefully sounds like. I guess this is the musical instrument equivalent of pre-faded jeans(or pre-torn ones), but it's awfully misguided.
What the person thinks they're buying in this $3000.00+ instrument is some kind of psychic transfusion of Jaco's incredible abilities into their fingertips. They think a pre-beat-to-shit Fender Jazz bass(and for an unconscionably marked-up price)is going to turn them into the next Beethoven of the electric bass.
The banged-up condition of Jaco's bass was actually due to the more self-destructive side of his nature--which, unfortunately ended up being the predominant side in the end. You might as well include a dime bag of heroin as long as you're trying to Be Just Like Jaco here. There are qualities to emulate and others to stay a country mile away from..
Best actually to take that $3000 and spend $500 on a decent instrument(maybe even a beat-up old Jazz Bass other than the 'Jaco model')and the other $2500 on lessons.Actually, without going back to the magazine, I seem to remember their Strats go up several thousand dollars with the right endorser's name on it, though you don't get a special banged-up guitar with peeling paint..
Jaco really was a great player, and also a fine composer. I'd love to read a biography on him, and I'm sure one exists somewhere.As far as that line(also used by Kid Rock), "it ain't braggin' if you can back it up", well that's awful damned arrogant. I generally dislike that kind of attitude, and usually the folks who have it(or let's say, agree to disagree but prefer to coexist on different Continents if possible). But as a musician, yes, definitely happening.
I guess my thing with "attitude" is whether or not it's a victimless crime. There was a guy I knew in music school, a fellow composition major, who was an "expert" in pretty much any field of endeavor you could imagine.
Side story: I heard him spouting off in the cafeteria to someone about his accomplishments, and someone at the next table(who'd been to school with him the previous year somewhere else, and thus had heard his line o' bullshit then)said to the other person(same scene),"the ____ story- it goes on and on and on". At a further point, my friend the comp major is saying, "yeah, I rose to the top of the advertising game..", wherein the two guys at the next table started going into the Tooter the Turtle thing where he's yelling for Mr Wizard: duhhh, HELP! HELP! I was sitting by myself at a third table enjoying all this.
Despite this, I got along with him fine, and even did a joint concert one summer: his tunes and my tunes. Why? Because all his shtuff was never at anyone else's expense.
As long as no one gets hurt in the process, I think most anything goes in life.
Okay, got off the track a bit here(there was a track? really?!). If you're going to imitate Jaco, imitate the playing, not the attitude. And save your $3000.00 for something else...
What the person thinks they're buying in this $3000.00+ instrument is some kind of psychic transfusion of Jaco's incredible abilities into their fingertips. They think a pre-beat-to-shit Fender Jazz bass(and for an unconscionably marked-up price)is going to turn them into the next Beethoven of the electric bass.
The banged-up condition of Jaco's bass was actually due to the more self-destructive side of his nature--which, unfortunately ended up being the predominant side in the end. You might as well include a dime bag of heroin as long as you're trying to Be Just Like Jaco here. There are qualities to emulate and others to stay a country mile away from..
Best actually to take that $3000 and spend $500 on a decent instrument(maybe even a beat-up old Jazz Bass other than the 'Jaco model')and the other $2500 on lessons.Actually, without going back to the magazine, I seem to remember their Strats go up several thousand dollars with the right endorser's name on it, though you don't get a special banged-up guitar with peeling paint..
Jaco really was a great player, and also a fine composer. I'd love to read a biography on him, and I'm sure one exists somewhere.As far as that line(also used by Kid Rock), "it ain't braggin' if you can back it up", well that's awful damned arrogant. I generally dislike that kind of attitude, and usually the folks who have it(or let's say, agree to disagree but prefer to coexist on different Continents if possible). But as a musician, yes, definitely happening.
I guess my thing with "attitude" is whether or not it's a victimless crime. There was a guy I knew in music school, a fellow composition major, who was an "expert" in pretty much any field of endeavor you could imagine.
Side story: I heard him spouting off in the cafeteria to someone about his accomplishments, and someone at the next table(who'd been to school with him the previous year somewhere else, and thus had heard his line o' bullshit then)said to the other person(same scene),"the ____ story- it goes on and on and on". At a further point, my friend the comp major is saying, "yeah, I rose to the top of the advertising game..", wherein the two guys at the next table started going into the Tooter the Turtle thing where he's yelling for Mr Wizard: duhhh, HELP! HELP! I was sitting by myself at a third table enjoying all this.
Despite this, I got along with him fine, and even did a joint concert one summer: his tunes and my tunes. Why? Because all his shtuff was never at anyone else's expense.
As long as no one gets hurt in the process, I think most anything goes in life.
Okay, got off the track a bit here(there was a track? really?!). If you're going to imitate Jaco, imitate the playing, not the attitude. And save your $3000.00 for something else...
posted by Roger U Roundly at 9:06 AM
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