Warning: contains those guitars that are like, double guitars

February 13, 2007 8:35 PM

Mahavishnu Orchestra - One Word
Weather Report - Seventh Arrow/Umbrellas
Squarepusher's 8-track [1] [2 + Buddy Rich]
Jaco Pastorius - Portrait of Tracy
Cannibal Ox - Pigeon
posted by rxrfrx (20 comments total)

"Buncha wankers" comment in 5... 4... 3...
posted by papakwanz at 8:40 PM on February 13, 2007

Cannibal Ox is nasty. Pigeon is one of my favorite tracks on The Cold Vein, which is a phenomenal album.
posted by HighTechUnderpants at 8:51 PM on February 13, 2007 [1 favorite]

Bunch of wankers. (music video, nsfw)
posted by boo_radley at 8:58 PM on February 13, 2007

From the youtube comments on Portrait of Tracy:

PhatLarkin (1 week ago)

Music theory wize, Jazz pwns all other musical artforms, Jaco was/always will be the best jazz bassist, and in most people opinion is the best bassist ever, "Icandoitbetter" is oficialy a fucktard, Victor wooten is more original and solos better then all those bassist he named period, and he looks up to This Man who can kick his but up and down on a bass, and the knows it
 
TOMPDUDE (2 weeks ago)

you are a fuck stick.
posted by Wolof at 8:59 PM on February 13, 2007

.
posted by Dizzy at 9:16 PM on February 13, 2007

Cannibal Ox is nasty. Pigeon is one of my favorite tracks on The Cold Vein, which is a phenomenal album.

Pssht. Raspberry Fields forever.
posted by Ufez Jones at 9:31 PM on February 13, 2007

Mahavishnu: I was expecting citar and tabla. But I likes me some guitar-driven jazz, I do. But, what's with the youtube music links? The sound sucks, and isn't music about the sound? OTOH: I think they listened to some Focus, back when. That bass line is nearly identical to something from either Moving Waves or Focus 3 (or, being as it's Focus, both).

I'd say I liked Focus better, but impossible to compare a good recording with a Youtube.

Then, being as bandwidth is metered insanely in South Africa, I must neglect to examine the other links, mores the pity.
posted by Goofyy at 9:55 PM on February 13, 2007

Goofyy: What's with the Youtube links is that it's the most legitimate way of sharing popular music in this context. Plus, there are pretty pictures.
posted by rxrfrx at 3:42 AM on February 14, 2007

Perhaps those pictures are 'pretty', to people more used to watching TV on a little 5" b&w portable. Often they are great for me, living abroad, to get a taste of some of what the commotion is about (Daily Show is a great example).

I suspect you're perfectly correct, though, that it's about how one can legally link to some music. I'd just expect some alternative to show up, soon, that actually provides decent sound. Perhaps those of you who grew up with MTV are more tuned to the visual parts.
posted by Goofyy at 4:37 AM on February 14, 2007

You can always link to those nice 30-second previews on Last.FM. But that would be a terrible post.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:09 AM on February 14, 2007

And that's where you both would be wrong. Everyone knows that "the f word" is the best song on The Cold Vein. Although the whole album is undoubtedly fantastic. Also, thanks for the other links. I'll have to peruse them more after work.
posted by friendlyjuan at 7:14 AM on February 14, 2007

I went to see Weather Report play at the Agora Ballroom, a relatively small venue in Cleveland, circa 1978. During the first set, I turned to my friend and said, "I don't know who that guy is, but he's the best electric bass player who ever lived." It was Jaco, of course, who played a medley of Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee" in and out of "Portrait of Tracy" during his solo spot that night. It was quite something to walk into a nightclub and see a player who was in the process of redefining the role of his instrument in music for generations to come.

For me, Jaco's greatest work is on Joni Mitchell's Hejira. (His entrance on her next album, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, several minutes into the song "Cotton Avenue," has got to be the heaviest bass note of all time.) I'm sad that Jaco's life ended up being so tortured, and that his career turned out to be terribly brief.
posted by digaman at 7:28 AM on February 14, 2007

Oh my god, I love me some Mahavishnu. That's the first video of the original line-up I've ever seen.
And digiman, I will heartily second that comment about Jaco's work on Hejira, one of my all time favorite albums. He makes the whole thing breathe.
posted by ghastlyfop at 7:35 AM on February 14, 2007

For what it's worth, Jaco is actually fooling around with "Donna Lee" and "Okonkole Y Trompa" and "Portrait of Tracy" in that video. It's not the most focused performance -- I'm sure there are better from that era out there. But Jaco sure looked good then: raow.
posted by digaman at 7:37 AM on February 14, 2007

Digaman: if you search YouTube for "Portrait of Tracy" there's at least one other Jaco performance on there, and among the dozens of bad cover attempts there's a dude sitting down and wearing a baseball cap who does a straight cover of what sounds pretty similar to the version on the self-titled album, and it isn't half-bad.
posted by rxrfrx at 7:39 AM on February 14, 2007

I saw John McLaughlin open for Stanley Clarke in 1977. I had been playing bass for two years at that point, mostly jazz.

I had, of course, gone primarily to see Stanley. Of course I knew who John McLaughlin was, who didn't, but I grew up in a location that made getting things like his records difficult at best, so I had never heard him.

30 seconds from the first note I didn't know what to think. He was moving real fast and thinking real hard and feeling real deeply, and I was always about 8 bars behind and trying to catch up.

I've been trying for 30 years.

The more I found out, the more impressed I was. I found out about a year later that he was playing a guitar with a scalloped fingerboard.

Is he serious? Guess so.

Got to say:

"Music theory wize, Jazz pwns all other musical artforms, ... "

Cracked me up ... kid should look into Indian classical music. It's like jazz with 2500 years of uninterrupted growth.
posted by Relay at 8:51 AM on February 14, 2007

Indian classical music + Jazz = Shakti

After Mahavishnu, John McLaughlin sat down with a bunch of Indian musicians (notably L. Shankar) and they combined influences. This performance is from a more recent reunion tour (sadly w/out L. Shankar, but with some new talent). Saw them perform early last year, pretty amazing show.

That said, there's quite a lot of influence from Indian music in the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
posted by timelord at 9:30 AM on February 14, 2007

Yes, yes. Shakti.

I can blame my interest in Indian music on McLaughlin and I had access to lots of documentation/people that knew about it.
posted by Relay at 9:46 AM on February 14, 2007

Relay, you should really pick up Peter Lavezzoli's newish book The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. It's one of the most brilliant, engaging, and ambitious music books I've ever read, and is crammed with new information about the influence of Indian music on the Byrds, Miles Davis, the Beatles, David Crosby, Oregon, Mahavishnu, and other leading lights of Western music.

It's a must-read. I thought I knew quite a bit about this stuff before, but Lavezzoli's book had major revelations on every page.
posted by digaman at 10:15 AM on February 14, 2007

That looks bitchin', thanks Digaman ... right up my alley.
posted by Relay at 10:33 AM on February 14, 2007