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About LinkBacksall i know about mahattan transfer is that i regularly find their vynils on second hand shops... who knows what they've become
all i know about mahattan transfer is that i regularly find their vynils on second hand shops... who knows what they've become
i like the first records of weather report for their funky feel, and real improvisations.
by the way i found in some cd box set that the drummer on "sweet nighter", Eric Gravatt i think it is, was carlos santana favorite WR drummer of all. since i like santana's ideas about music ( as far as i listen to his album up to 1975 only ), i quite agree.
anyone know about that drummer in particular?
and another question: does anyone know how Sam and Dave come to sing for Jaco?
sir sunwaiterOriginally Posted by sunwaiter
I agree with you. It does seem we have both Pink Floyd, Turyia Alice Coltrane, Santana, Jaco and Weather Report in common. GREAT MAN!!
Here´s a link for Eric Kamau Gravatt:
http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Eric_Kamau_Gravatt.html
I have to check some older files of mine to find something about Sam Moore & Dave Prater, though I do seem to remember that one of Jaco´s first jobs was with these two vocalists.
"I´ll be back", quote Arnold Schwarzenegger - One of these daysI saw your entry on this quote and song from Pink Floyd (the album "Meddle"), for more on Jaco and Sam & Dave.
Below you see the front cover of Jaco´s first solo album from 1976, simply entitled "Jaco Pastorius" (his real name was John Francis Pastorius III, born on 12.01.1951 in Norristown. Pennsylvania, USA) . On this album, you will find the Sam & Dave hit single song "Come on, Come Over" (style of music: R & B) in celebration of R & B and Sam Moore & Dave Prater.
Jazz (right genre)Kunstner:
Artist:
From the liner notes to this album, participating musicians etc. etc.: http://www.buy.com/prod/come-on-come-over/q/loc/18250/200649846.html
Jaco would have been 57 today, where I am still but a lad at 54 (lols).
Here´s a link to wikipedia on Sam & Dave: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_&_Dave
Last edited by intet_at_tabe; Sep-18-2008 at 13:16.
Best regards,
intet_at_tabe
wow more and more infos!! thx intet-at-tabe. Gravatt has an awesome beard now
and i'm happy to find a note by terry bozzio, who was a great discovery for me as i watched frank zappa's baby snakes video. he had that mixed glow of fun, impressive technique ability, theatrical presence that suited zappa's repertoire and most of all an obvious and justifiable childish, showing-off attitude that adds something to the show.
Manhattan Transfer was on Emeril Live last christmas. Look it up on
you tube.
judy tooley
Weather Report! Thoughts of Weather Report profile like thoughts of weather reports and newspapers, always constant variables in our lives. Wayne Shorter, known through Miles Davis since the sixties, Beautiful! Composing with Joseph Zawinul on keys to start Weather Report created attention grabbing and aggressive top of the pop chart hits, instrumental "jazz-fusion".
Needing to hire another bassist, they found Jaco Pastorius, touring "Birdland".
My Press Pass from The Welland Evening Tribune usually worked. The only newspaper a in city of over 50,000. Closer to Niagara Falls than Buffalo. The crowd of people or my friends wanting to pay to get in really helped me and my date. I've been to Kleinmann's Music Hall a few times, and I hope I spelled his name properly. This time to see Weather Report. No press was being allowed backstage, there was no press area, bar or buffet. This turned out to be a good thing, as we went back with our friends and actually watched the whole show.
Surprise after surprise! Not saying a word, Joe and Wayne would appear top stage left with the keys, play the opening and walk off. They returned to play the ending. All night. Every song. No solos. Not one. But that was alright. Two drummers were spread out on a descending two steps stage, with Jaco Pastorius down a wall on the main floor stage with his amp in the middle. Why am I thinking Alex Acuna and Chester Thompson? There would be a long bass and double drums jam, a long bass solo, another bass and drums jam and the ending. Every song, all night. No deviation. But that was alright all night, watching long Jaco Pastorius bass solos.
He was tall and skinny, had scruffy torn jeans, a pale green Florida palm shirt and past the shoulders hair with sneakers. He used a Fender Jazz Bass with a 25 foot cord through an Acoustic amp about 4 1/2' feet tall, with maybe an eighteen and four tens or twelves. Sometimes he'd stop and talk about what he was playing. He'd be walking around his amp, go up to the back wall and face up to one of the drummers, or both, or stand across the front, leaning down forward, swooping around with his bass, and standing and leaning backwards like some slow motion Cirque de Soleil acrobat. He toned down for a bass and cello approach to four strings, sounding like a chamber quartet. He would turn the effects and volume drive up and walk around, holding the bass up flat manipulating the volume and tones, looking down the strings at you while getting a spacey feedback semi-Hendrix solo happening, echoing off the whole room. Sometimes it came down to just Jaco by himself, meditatively, both drummers towelling off. He towelled off frequently. You felt like towelling too in a facility having air conditioning problems.
Jaco's sonic volume, his agitating and insistent pulling and snapping of the strings, chiming harmonics out at you, letting them long echo with French horn and double bass voices, mike stand sliding clusters of passing trombone textures, hair-lashed noise and curly-cord whipped contraphasals, tired you out too. You knew you had just heard a great concert, and a great bass lesson. It might seem too glib now, but Jaco Pastorius lived a contrapuntal life. He sold a lot of fretless basses. Even I did a job filing one down. Some of my favorite musicians being from Buffalo, I wonder what Pat Methany, Lyle Mayes and Jaco Pastorius would have done.
Having heard Hendrix and owning a Strat and Marshall with effects back then, I know what Jimi and Jaco could sound like. They would be floating along, "Moon, Turn the Tides away, gently... gently..." now orchestrated with a Jaco bass heavy atmosphere while Jimi creates passing clusters of underwater phenomena, singing about "mermen and aquatic women" and "jellyfish"... hearing the surf again and the reintroduction of muted single notes without deep echo surfaces your consciousness. The quiet washes of what I think are Stevie Winwood out-takes from "Voodoo Chile" swell and ebb, adding a receding surf action. Jaco would still be there with some soft horn or cello octave finger tapping, phasing and flanging, and when the sound of a band going up the beach takes you ashore (like Miles Davis's stereo use of passing simutaneous riff clusters on Bitches Brew) they would click together, hitting a rhythm down low, grooving the song and... as only they could go... Jimi and Jaco...
Last edited by John Watt; Oct-30-2008 at 09:31.
and what about Jimi and Miles?
they both shared an absolute taste for experiment through sonic possibilities, power, different uses instruments, real fusion.
it has been said that Miles and Jimi met at a party where the jazz veteran suggested to the machine gun engineer that they should play together. or is it the contrary? maybe they did not even drink together, maybe they never really crossed paths. but some said that tapes from the eventual collaboration were hidden in some obscure drawers, like any object of fantasy, never to be found out.
when i listen to Buddy Miles' "nichols canyon funk", i wonder how funky Jimi could have been, cause he represented many styles of "black" music, even when worshipped by lots of "white" rockers or hippies. he delt with the blues, he played incredibly loud with incredible distortion effects and all sorts of other devices that you know very well, John Watt, before black sabbath and co, he liked to jam because most of the time (at least on the audio and video traces we've got today) themes were really a pretext to improvise.
the last new year's eve Jimi spent on earth was funky, and he was so thin, his wrists seemed too fragile to hold and play the guitar.
for those who like to believe such thing: maybe jaco and jimi and miles, and ray and james and barry and chet and bonzo and.. etc... are playing together, making a HELL of a noise in HEAVEN.
Sunwaiter, you presuppose those "who like to believe such things". I can only surmise that like every true believer, you believe your own truth, cloaked by your own judgement and learning. I hope you take Sundays off. That's entry level.
If I was part of being outside, one with the public forums and amphitheatre, everything entertaining known and rehearsed inside me, I'd lament enclosure. I wasn't an opera producer feeling sad, watching people sit quietly to hear symphonies. I wasn't a classical composer, watching small jazz orchestras with audiences for dances. I wasn't a local player, watching the Hollywood elite use electronic products to dominate everyone else. I wasn't in a Big Band when those electronics enabled one guitarist with an amplifier, filling the hall solo with louder sound. I was there to hear the first musician using ambient feedback to create part of his beautiful sound, a floating symphony he could waft with the neck of his guitar.
When I consider what it takes to present a symphonic work, the writing and reading, musicians and instruments, the hall, the seats, I equate it with standing onstage in the axis of a Hendrix style setup, immediately louder, phasing and flanging various levels of tone and string presence. I could gently strum a simple Em and just listen, wait for it to build, drone with effects on certain strings, react to touching of different guitar parts, partially pitch bent and chorussed for passing elements when standing on a cord generates it's own signal. Not a mighty woodwind ensemble, but a hurricane itself. Once that swirled is there, it's so relaxing it's crazy. You in the eye, the axis, seeing out through your sound with the semi-conscious concentration of playing and watching and having to listen, as your fingers are often irrelevant to what you hear, and your instrument can lead you. I always say I can only play as good as I sound.
But that lead guitar era has passed. It's too bad Jimi didn't have digital. It's easy to replicate now what took pure volume before, and use manufactured stereo and synthesized effects. Jimi may have worked mechanically to simulate the radar and sonar signatures he learned in the air force. But now we have effects devices named phase shifter and flanger or chorus control. The real dimensions of our lives still exist out there, measurable and playable. You are more than welcome to visit and try such a set-up yourself. It's a big responsibility, bylaws and all that, but if you catch a sound, phased with the atmosphere, a sound of our earth, you'll feel it. I feel it so much I can look around and say that when years from now, when everything is digital, Leo Fender and his individual two-way adjustable bridges was the start of scientific tuning and our modern era of music. I wonder what a non-tempered symphony, wired and effected and conducted cleanly, could do.
As Jimi said, don't look for your own reflection in someone else's window. You have to smash that room full of mirrors, for the whole world to be there for you to see. And then you'll be watching for your love to be.
hi! how's it going today?
i didn't get what you said about sundays off.
but yeah, it is true, everyone's got a different approach to what is real or not, to what happened or not. speculation is a activity.
do you prefer jimi's studio music or his live performance (i guess you can answer in a very sharp way since you witnessed some of his concerts)?
Sunwaiter! Speculation, you are so right. You know it when it busts, and you know when it comes through. I bought my first Hendrix album on speculation. In grade ten English, our teacher would give us an extra mark if you recited or performed your required memory work. I was standing near her desk and saw "Are You Experienced" with those garish printer's ink colours and fish-eye lens photography, of a band outside in a park. I read the liner notes and bought it later that week, wanting to buy "In A Silent Way" and seeing the album art and grabbing "Bitches Brew" as a new release. The best album shopping I ever did. One half of Bitches Brew was listenable only once, or twice, and there were a few tunes I played again, but I traded it. In a Silent Way stayed with me for a long time. I like how Miles lets you get into the sound, before he gets busy. Totally different from his bebop albums. Herbie Hancock said Miles asked him to play an electric piano that was there, his first, and that's what stuck to me about that record. That and the incredible hits each other player, Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, etc, made later on.
And Sunwaiter, I appreciate your Hendrix live/studio query. I spent most of my headphone time with Jimi. Except for the albums used to demonstrate stereo home entertainment centers, with cinematic sounds, only Jimi was creating a dimensional soundscape. That must have been nice, not having time for crosswords or building a lefty guitar, just playing with tapes, like music processing. And that's all that was, plastic and cellulose. Live, Jimi really played guitar. They say he never played the same thing twice, and he was on all the time. Watching him, he impressed you because he was having such a good time up there. What he was doing was so musically environmental and immediate, he seemed to be trying to play more than fingering the fingerboard. If I thought buying the same guitar and amp would make me sound like that, he made it look too easy.
But let me perhaps delve into a jazz thing, for you. In the early 70's, some friends and I went to see Herbie Mann at The Colonial, where we saw George Benson, a medium sized and formal nightclub on the main street of Toronto. He was very melodic and energetic, with a far better band, probably New York session pros. I got talking to a band member because he was waiting until the washroom was empty of whites before he went in. I said this was Canada, and waited behind him. When Herbie started the second set he took off his shirt, topless from the waist up. We couldn't reconcile that. He picked up his alto flute for the first time, a beautiful sound, my friend got one right away, and played "Never Can Say Goodbye" by The Jackson Five. A lot of bands picked up that tune, and I played a disco version eight years later. But this topless thing, what's with that?
Herbie played "never can say goodbye" on the album "push-push". There is aretha franklin's "spirit in the dark" and "chain of fools" too. he can be seen topless on the cover. It looks like he liked exposins his hairy chest. some kind of hippie thing, according to my vision of that period.
"jazz" artists seemed to get acquainted with lots of possibilities at that time, and the two Herbies were among the more courageaous ones. The flutist worshiped aretha franklin, whom this album is dedicated to if i remember well. He ended up in disco criticizable but also danceable music.
Herbie the keyboardist did the same but got even beyond, as you know, with his electronic adventures of the eighties. then he calmed down and went back to something he really mastered . age of reason, some say. "Headhunters" is one of the first "jazz" albums i ever bought and i still listen to it regularly today. the climax of funkiness is on "Sly" (refering to Sly Stone of course), at about minute ten.
i like the concept of funkiness. the 1969-1974 era is, to me, and in terms of records i know, the ultimate funk era. i even call 1974 the year of the snare drum, because people weren't afraid anymore to hear it sounding loud and heavy, thanks partly to James Brown's earlier productions.
i think i could do unconfessable things to be there and see and hear live performances Jimi, James, Ozzy, Herbie and even Michael and his brothers, because they did played funky music.
Sunwaiter! Your Herbie Mann comments are right on. If you say hairy chest on that album cover he must have shaved the rest of his body. It was what, early 70's, when I saw him and haven't heard much since. But you saying he played "Chain of Fools" is worth a listen. That's a great song. Hearing "chain, chain, chain... chain, chain, chain... chain of fools" makes me feel like I'm getting dragged along myself. I would think sax right away, but I think the flute could sound more vulnerable. Who knows what Herbie Hancock would do with some hum in a tube synth around his neck.
It's interesting that you talk about a snare drum era, citing James Brown, the most sampled band around. I'm being more late 70's, but musicians around here still talk about big Ludwig marching snares. And some girls still remember that Phil Collin's drum break.
That all sounds poignant, until I remember that Russian troupe of entertainers. I was asked to join an Elvis act who was showcasing at a large theatre in Niagara Falls, where The Elvis Presley Museum was, during an Elvis anniversary. A group of fourteen Russian entertainers who had been stiffed by their manager in Toronto, big news, had been relocated to Niagara Falls, working out of this theatre. I was pumped, thinking about my new stereo Marshall system. Elvis Little was pumped, lots of new sequins. But then I went backstage. The Russians, men and women, were warming up. They looked like ballet dancers, until it got more physical. When it seemed everyone was taking a turn on the piano and violin, I asked and was told someone with an injury would do the easy work onstage. The costumes, music, singing, dancing, fighting, juggling, all exhilerating, every night.
Seeing how hard they worked to be successful, I felt embarrassed and lazy onstage, tied to my amp. I felt bad going over big time as a one nighter rock'n'roll clone act, when these artists were being taken for granted. They were closed down a few days later. Our theatre show attracted an early dinner crowd. Sitting around afterwards with the Russians, I said any one of them put our show to shame, and I would talk to the owner and put my pay on the table, like them, and treat for our supper. I couldn't talk Russian, and except for a few pokes and smiles, no-one talked English to me. But sitting with those men and women was a symphonic and olympic experience. I'll never know a society that requires such intense and varied talents, just to get by.
Unconfessable things? I have to have my share too. I'm still thinking about it.
Last edited by John Watt; Nov-11-2008 at 12:31.
John Watt,
i mentioned the jacksons. this family is, as was james brown, a true example of HARD WORK. everybody knows their story.the very heavy hand of the father, the prison-like career, the sad children playing joyous funk.
yesterday i saw something that i can qualify as weird on youtube. a little chinese girl, maybe three or four years old, showing how supple she was, spinning on her jaw with the help of some metallic device, somewhere on a city street. nothing sadder to see this mini-circus officer, executing incredible and not risk-free things, just to get some thing to eat.
the comparison is a little clumsy but i couln't prevent myself from doing it.
here in paris, lots of people play all kinds of music ( that we can sort as the Duke did ), for the same purpose. some other people don't play music. some should not try anymore to play music, because it's their everyday unchanging performance that busts my b---s and kills the few humanity left in me, when i get back home after a day of "work". sometimes you give em your dime just to make them stop massacring elvis, piaf or bach.
but afterwards i think: djeez, this must be very tough. and i also realize that the biggest talent is to stay alive. music may be my passion, it's jut a hobby. michael and the roms in the subway do it for a living.
Ah, Sunwaiter! I touched the quick reply and can still see your message while I type. That's really nice. You are right about Chinese, say Asian, acrobats. You are saying the same things my parents said watching them on Ed Sullivan back then. I'm catching some emotional resonance from you, so I'll take a chance and answer your question about my reference to taking Sundays off, calling it entry level. Believe me, trust me, know me, I'll never start Bible-beating. There is this real spiritual history. And if you think of the ten commandments, you will see taking Sunday off is ahead of not murdering or being an adulterer. It's a simple truth, but it's the simple truths that expand to format your life eternally.
Here in Toronto, where there are a lot of conservatories, you can find beautiful musicians out in public with their open case on the ground. The professional street musicians have to audition to get one of the city approved locations. And then there are the lost souls holding an instrument. All those lost souls, the ill and homeless, is one good reason I moved out of Toronto. Being a rock musician, playing in clubs, meant a lot of girls coming on to me, thinking I had something back in my room, or would party with them so they could stay. I gave away money for a lot of cab or bus rides home, and was a soft touch on the street. It's hard to walk out into the night, pumped up with your performance, only to be confronted with that.
It makes me sad to see you say it kills the humanity left in you. Don't feel that way. And it's not tough. It's just what they are doing. If music is your passion, it's not a hobby. It's a passion. Don't let anything interfere with that. Don't think you're too old, too fat, have a cheap instrument, none of that. If Jubal, named in The Bible as the first musician God gave talent to help us, walked the earth today, he would wonder what we are doing listening to pieces of plastic, almost everywhere we go, with not much human music. Think of your passion as righteous, and music a weapon of love. If you can act on that once in a while, even once as you grow older, it will make it all worthwhile. The atmosphere of music will open up for you, blessing you. Sure, you will become more disenchanted with all the flash and trash. I know someone who can't watch T.V. any more. When I say Sundays off is entry level, I mean this. Honouring your creator, respecting your spiritual intermediary, is taking Sundays off. With this attitude, watch what happens to your Sunday and what you can do or what it brings to you. I can see you sitting outside with your instrument, maybe waiting for someone to ask for a tune, or just serenading the birds. I can see you inviting a seemingly destitute musician back to your place for a meal, and getting into some good tunes. You might be surprised and add some humanity, make another friend, for your life.
I have to disagree with "the biggest talent is to stay alive". If you mean staying alive in a spiritual sense, you are right. That's why we have to go through this life, trying to uplift ourselves if not maintaining. As God says, he wouldn't make us born if he would not provide for us, and we should not have a care for tomorrow. You can walk away from it all naked, but you wouldn't die. And you might find life carrying you, a life that doesn't die.
You caught me in a thoughtful, but tired mood. I hope my outreach isn't offensive, et, je ne sais pas tout les mots, mais mon ami, nous sont joyeux.
as always, John Watt.
John Watt.
I am happy to see that some people still take some time to answer, whatever the reality rate of time is. you took some to write a proper answer and i'm not only grateful, but honored.
now let's forget the polite formulas. i did meant staying alive. wether it means, physically alive or spiritually alive, it looks quite the same to me, often. i like to think "brain dead, body dead". i have a virtually bottomless well of love or maybe naiveness, and in both cases it leads me to be disappointed or angry more than i wish it would but i always remember that i have been provided with the essence of life. i often tell it to friends: i have been kinda lucky until now, in terms of pain. didn't have to deal with too much of it, so i'm glad; and i'm really enjoying my trip.
when i mentioned the humanity being killed in the subway, it was just a somewhat clumsy image to describe my unability to bear what we call here la routine. but be sure i've always respected those who play an instrument (not that they deserve more respect than any other earthling but i feel some parentship-i don't know if laws alow me to use this word).
i meant that the world as it is, or more exactly the society we created, in all its various forms, doesn't really like music or accept it as an absolutely vital activity. it may have been some time ago in forgotten cultures, but you know what i mean. now the bottom line: i think life is precious, but that it also can be seen as a hobby, in the sense that we are not important. importance is an illusion, and everybody knows it, but we always fake ignorance by agitating ourselves like ants, observed by gods who are too tall. i really enjoy life, because of this incredible luck, being here.
i don't believe in samsara, and i hold on to my life, because i really feel that i'm alive. if i were into sophisms, i would say that the greatest talent is to maintain what i call luck. i know it's a little blurry but i truly felt like saying it to try to explain my view.
i have always played as an amateur on guitar, bass, drums, kitchen utensils, toothbrush et al, since my twenties i have listened to lots of music and i have acquired a sure information, if there has to be one at least and at last: music is really my passion. so will tell millions or more people. even if playing music has to be hitting my throat with my index, trying to reproduce the theme from "macgyver" to make a baby laugh, i do believe that i'll always have music.
for the first time in my "professional" life, this year i discovered what a "week-end" was, yo know, sundays off. it's not that i was chinese before, but, i didn't work in steady places. now i really lke sundays because each one of them is mine. until the next rythmic pattern my existence wants me to follow.
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