Jaco Pastorius - Jaco Pastorius (1976)

It's impossible to hear Jaco Pastorious' debut album today as it sounded when it was first released in 1976. The opening track -- his transcription for fretless electric bass of the bebop standard "Donna Lee" -- was a manifesto of virtuosity; the next track, the funk-soul celebration "Come On, Come Over" was a poke in the eye to jazz snobs and a love letter to the R&B greats of the previous decade (two of whom, Sam & Dave, sing on that track); "Continuum" was a spacey, chorus-drenched look forward to the years he was about to spend playing with Weather Report. The program continues like that for three-quarters of an hour, each track heading off in a different direction -- each one a masterpiece that would have been a proud achievement for any musician. What made Jaco so exceptional was that he was responsible for all of them, and this was his debut album. Beyond his phenomenal bass technique and his surprisingly mature compositional chops (he was 24 when this album was released), there was the breathtaking audacity of his arrangements: "Okonkole Y Trompa" is scored for electric bass, French horn, and percussion, and "Speak Like a Child," which Pastorious composed in collaboration with pianist Herbie Hancock, features a string arrangement by Pastorious that merits serious attention in its own right. For a man with this sort of kaleidoscopic creativity to remain sane was perhaps too much to ask; his gradual descent into madness and eventual tragic death are now a familiar story, one which makes the bright promise of this glorious debut album all the more bittersweet. (This remastered reissue adds two tracks to the original program: alternate takes of "(Used to Be a) Cha Cha" and "6/4 Jam").

by Rick Anderson in All Music Guide

Styles:
Fusion
Post-Bop
Funk

Tracks:
01 - Donna Lee (02:27)
02 - Come on, Come Over (03:50)
03 - Continuum (04:31)
04 - Kuru/ Speak Like a Child (07:38)
05 - Portrait of Tracy (02:20)
06 - Opus Pocus (05:24)
07 - Okonloke Y Trompa (04:21)
08 - (Used to be a) Cha-Cha (08:52)
09 - Forgotten Love (02:12)

Line-up:
Jaco Pastorius - bass
Don Allas - percussion
Herbie Hancock - keyboards
Lenny White - drums
Narada Michael Waldon - drums (2)
Bobby Ecconomou - drums (4)
Othello Molineaux - steel drums
Leroy Williams - steel drums
Michael Brecker - tenor sax (2)
David Sanborn - alto sax (2)
Howard Johnson - baritone sax (2)
Peter Graves - trombone (2)
Sam and Dave - vocals (2)
Wayne Shorter - soprano sax (6)
Ron Tooley - trumpet (2)
Hubert Laws - flute (8)
Peter Ground - french horn (7)

Carlos Santana/ Mahavishnu John McLaughlin - Love Devotion Surrender (1973)

A hopelessly misunderstood record in its time by Santana fans -- they were still reeling from the radical direction shift toward jazz on Caravanserai and praying it was an aberration -- it was greeted by Santana devotees with hostility, contrasted with kindness from major-league critics like Robert Palmer. To hear this recording in the context of not only Carlos Santana's development as a guitarist, but as the logical extension of the music of John Coltrane and Miles Davis influencing rock musicians -- McLaughlin, of course, was a former Davis sideman -- this extension makes perfect sense in the post-Sonic Youth, post-rock era. With the exception of Coltrane's "Naima" and McLaughlin's "Meditation," this album consists of merely three extended guitar jams played on the spiritual ecstasy tip -- both men were devotees of guru Shri Chinmoy at the time. The assembled band included members of Santana's band and the Mahavishnu Orchestra in Michael Shrieve, Billy Cobham, Doug Rauch, Armando Peraza, Jan Hammer (playing drums!), and Don Alias. But it is the presence of the revolutionary jazz organist Larry Young -- a colleague of McLaughlin's in Tony Williams' Lifetime band -- that makes the entire project gel. He stands as the great communicator harmonically between the two very different guitarists whose ideas contrasted enough to complement one another in the context of Young's aggressive approach to keep the entire proceeding in the air. In the acknowledgement section of Coltrane's "A Love Supreme," which opens the album, Young creates a channel between Santana's riotous, transcendent, melodic runs and McLaughlin's rapid-fire machine-gun riffing. Young' double-handed striated chord voicings offered enough for both men to chew on, leaving free-ranging territory for percussive effects to drive the tracks from underneath. Check "Let Us Go Into the House of the Lord," which was musically inspired by Bobby Womack's "Breezing" and dynamically foreshadowed by Pharoah Sanders' read of it, or the insanely knotty yet intervallically transcendent "The Life Divine," for the manner in which Young's organ actually speaks both languages simultaneously. Young is the person who makes the room for the deep spirituality inherent in these sessions to be grasped for what it is: the interplay of two men who were not merely paying tribute to Coltrane, but trying to take his ideas about going beyond the realm of Western music to communicate with the language of the heart as it united with the cosmos. After three decades, Love Devotion Surrender still sounds completely radical and stunningly, movingly beautiful.

by Thom Jurek in All Music Guide

Styles:
Jazz-Rock
Fusion
Blues
Post-Bop

Tracks:
01 - A Love Supreme (07:48)
02 - Naima (03:09)
03 - The Life Divine (09:30)
04 - Let us Go Into the House of the Lord (15:45)
05 - Meditation (02:45)

Line-up:
Mahavishnu John McLaughlin - guitar, piano
Carlos Santana - guitar
Doug Rauch - bass guitar
Mahalakshami Eve McLaughlin - piano
Khalid Yasin - piano, organ
Mingo Lewis - piano, keyboards
Billy Cobham - drums, percussion
Don Alias - drums, percussion
Jan Hammer - drums, percussion
Mike Shrieve - drums, percussion
Armando Peraza - congas, percussion, vocals