Jaco Pastorius - 2017 "Truth, Liberty & Soul" - Live In NYC 1982

In the summer of 1982, Jaco Pastorius had just left Weather Report, and he was widely known as the best electric bassist in the world. He had a new large ensemble, the Word of Mouth Big Band (named after the 1981 Pastorius album that provided much of its repertoire). Collecting some of the best young figures in jazz and fusion, the group was a startling reminder of how broad Pastorius’ talents were: He was able to arrange his bubbling jazz-funk on a grand scale, using a rather traditional jazz band format (well, plus steel pan). “Truth, Liberty and Soul” comes from the band’s performance at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, during the Kool Jazz Festival that year. Some highlights don’t involve the full 22-piece band at all: Pastorius’s long, Hendrix-quoting solo on “Bass and Drum Improvisation”; and his duet with the harmonica player Toots Thielemans on Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady.”

In his short life, Jaco Pastorius revolutionised the bass guitar, and lifted the music of key jazz-fusioneers Pat Metheny and Weather Report in the 1970s – but his ambition was to form a big band. This previously unreleased live set captures a blistering two-hour gig from Pastorius’s soulful, swinging and very full-on Word of Mouth orchestra in 1982, with saxophonist Bob Mintzer, trumpeter Randy Brecker and harmonica maestro Toots Thielemans in the ranks. The riff-shouting, soul-jazzy Pastorius standby The Chicken is constantly stung by the leader’s springy, ever-changing basslines, the fast Charlie Parker bebop classic Donna Lee is implausibly and audaciously unfolded as a unison bass and tuba theme, Three Views of a Secret sets a lyrical Thielemans free over floating Gil Evans-like harmonies, the world-music of the slithery, simmering Reza turns into Coltrane’s Giant Steps, and three drummers including Peter Erskine and Don Alias are explosive and remarkably melodic by turns. This exhilarating set is a real find, for Jaco fans and left-field big-band followers alike.

Sonically, Truth, Liberty & Soul is also, hands down, the best-sounding Word of Mouth recording ever...and that includes the original (and not at all shabby-sounding) live albums Invitation (Warner Bros., 1983), the expanded two-volume, Japanese-only release of the full concert from which Invitation was culled (1999's Twins I & II: Live in Japan, from Warners Japan), and the posthumous 1995 release of The Birthday Concert (Warner Bros.), the first live performance of a series of big band charts that would go on to become the core repertoire of the Word of Mouth Big Band, recorded at the bassist's 30th birthday party in Fort Lauderdale, FL. This is music that literally leaps out of the speakers to fill the room, whether it's funkified soul; swinging, bop-informed improvisational forays; free improvisation passages of remarkable group synchronicity; beautiful, elegantly composed ballads; or contrastingly refined and thrilling looks at not just jazz chestnuts, but one reggae tune and, during Pastorius' shared "Bass and Drums Improvisation" with Erskine, references to Jimi Hendrix, the American National Anthem.

It’s curious that we don’t more directly associate electric jazz bass playing with Latin rhythms, given that the greatest practitioner on the instrument featured them so centrally in his sound. This newly unearthed document is a key sonic case in point. Here we have Jaco Pastorius with his Word of Mouth Big Band, live at NYC’s Avery Fisher Hall in the summer of 1982 for George Wein’s Kool Jazz Festival, regaling listeners with 130 minutes of music in which his ever-virtuosic bass work is neatly folded into a larger group dynamic. (The set is available as a three-LP box, two-CD package and digital download, including a 100-page book with contributions by Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, biographer Bill Milkowski and others.)

That this was an NPR recording means the sound is impeccable, no small detail in appreciating the full tonal display of Pastorius’ lines. On the opening “Invitation”—which functions as a musical epistle/beckoning to a damn good time—his notes are tightly clustered, like buzzy, motivic spirals that serve as fillips for the piece. Bob Mintzer’s tenor saxophone provides a lot of the solo-based forward motion, but it’s the Latin inflection—courtesy of Othello Molineaux’s steel drums—that makes this feel like work born of tropical climes and the jazz of New Orleans in all its wonderfully bonhomous hoodoo.

Pastorius never dominates, instead serving as facilitator for an ensemble of expert personnel like the bassist’s fellow Weather Report alumni Peter Erskine on drums and Don Alias on percussion, saxophonists Mintzer, Frank Wess and Howard Johnson and trumpeters Randy Brecker, Lew Soloff and Jon Faddis. Even when the leader solos and his bass becomes guitar-like, with a hint of trumpet and piano, he’s always in control, always economical. If his notes were drops of water they’d never overfill the bowl.

“Donna Lee” is a first-half highlight, the kettledrums contrasting with a Sun Ra-esque futuristic vibe in the refrains. “Soul Intro/The Chicken” features a fanfare straight from a 1980s late-night talk show as its intro, before the titular bird leaps into the fray to jitterbug. This is one brassy strut, a proper comfort-food piece, with a high feel-good quotient. Brecker plays his hindquarters off, ascending to Freddie Hubbard heights of hard-bop glory, but with the underpinning of a samba. Toots Thielemans turns up on harmonica on several numbers, but his contributions have mixed results. He’s more effective when he accompanies rather than spars, for this is Ellingtonian music—and a showcase for Pastorius the bandleader, the shaper of a series of jazz tone poems with symphonic qualities.

“Reza/Giants Steps” is akin to an electric bass concerto, something like those moments in Miles Davis’ Second Great Quintet when Tony Williams would simmer at his kit, keeping the music below a boil, his mates exploring the space around him. So it goes with Pastorius here, his fingers moving so fast you wonder if anyone could possibly transcribe this. It’s a bit like wondering how to take the temperature of a star. Better to just luxuriate in the light.

Newly-released live recording which documents a June 27, 1982 concert at Avery Fisher Hall (complete with a 100-page book). The performance was part of George Wein’s Kool Jazz Festival and a large portion was broadcast on National Public Radio’s Jazz Alive!, a program produced by Tim Owens and hosted by Dr. Billy Taylor that ran from 1977 to 1983. Owens and Zev Feldman of Resonance uncovered 40 minutes that weren’t played during the NPR show, and have released the entire 130-minute concert in its entirety with the help of Grammy-winning engineer Paul Blakemore, who worked the original performance at Lincoln Center.

Track listing:

CD 1
1. Invitation (13:04)
2. Soul Intro/The Chicken (9:10)
3. Donna Lee (13:18)
4. Three Views to a Secret (6:38)
5. Liberty City (10:10)
6. Sophisticated Lady (7:43)
7. Bluesette (5:31)

CD 2
1. I Shot the Sheriff (6:55)
2. Okonkolé y Trompa (15:07)
3. Reza/Giant Steps (Medley) (10:19)
4. Mr. Fonebone (10:37)
5. Bass and Drum Improvisation (14:05)
6. Twins (2:53)
7. Fannie Mae (5:55)

Personnel:

    Bass, Vocals – Jaco Pastorius
    Alto Saxophone – Bob Stein (4)
    Baritone Saxophone – Howard Johnson (3), Randy Emerick   
    Drums – Peter Erskine
    French Horn – John Clark (2), Peter Gordon (8)
    Harmonica [Special Guest] – Toots Thielemans (tracks: 1-4 to 2-1, 2-4, 2-7)
    Percussion – Don Alias
    Steel Drums – Othello Molineaux
    Tenor Saxophone – Frank Wess, Lou Marini
    Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Bass Clarinet – Bob Mintzer
    Trombone – David Taylor, Jim Pugh, Wayne Andre
    Trumpet – Alan Rubin, Jon Faddis, Kenny Faulk*, Lew Soloff, Randy Brecker, Ron Tooley
    Tuba – David Bargeron*