Bass Player: John Francis ‘Jaco’ Pastorius III

Jaco invented the fretless bass. Well, actually, no; he didn’t. He wasn’t even the first bass player in Weather Report to use a fretless bass. What he did was to present the world with a sound that was so overwhelmingly influential that it has come to define what the instrument is about. It would be reasonable to suggest that the tune that presented ‘that’ sound to the world more than any other was the tune ‘A Remark You Made’ from the Weather Report album ‘Heavy Weather’ (1977). This is a full transcription of Jaco’s part to the tune. It is not a difficult chart to play but there are a lot of unusual phrases and note placements. The secret is not to play the notes but to play the sound!