Customer Reviews

Word of Mouth

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

well...I listen to it and I sadly wish Jaco had lived longer. Then "Word of Mouth" would have been fun to listen to as Jaco trying really really hard - putting as much in an album as he possibly could. Had he lived, I imagine him refining and simplifying his compositions and arrangements. This album is very very big. There are so many things going on that it sometimes sounds cloudy. I love "John and Mary", probably my favorite cut. Funny how it resembles some of the weather report songs from the live 8:30 album... these long, joyful-sounding, hum-along anthems. As a jaco fan I love it, but I'm glad I first got into Jaco from hearing his first solo album and Invitation. Once I loved those albums I could then handle his manic orchestration of Word of Mouth.

Word of Mouth is a collection of inventive, creative tunes and arrangements performed by a diverse collection of talented musicians. It runs the gamut of emotions, from the frenetic to the sublime. The music is always leading us somewhere, never content to stagnate. This is music that you should sit down and listen to, definitely not background music. This is the unique work of a gifted musician and composer.

Oh yeah, and he can play bass too.

This album is about Jaco Pastorius as a composer and a musician. While he does take a few moments to dazzle us with his virtuosity on the electric bass, what really captivates is the sweep of this entire album as a complete work. His bass playing is everywhere, contributing significantly to the musical whole, but is always subservient to the musical task at hand.

This album is not just for bass players. This is a real gem. Go get it!

Jaco Pastorius sophomore effort, coming 5 years after his solo debut (and after a few albums with Weather Report and Joni Mitchell), demonstrates his compositional talent. On "Three Views of Secret", Jaco restrains his playing and keeps it within the context of the song. This is a beautiful piece, cited by many as the quintessential Pastorius piece. On Bach's "Chromatic Fantasy", he shows off his speed and technical virtuosity, and continues into McCartney and Lennon's "Blackbird", in which he maintains both the bass and part of the melody in a complex bit of fretboard mastery. "Liberty City" highlights his ability to arrange for horns (a talent also shown on Joni Mitchell's "Mingus" album) and again play within the song. "Word of Mouth", by contrast, is a frenzied attack, with Jaco quoting from his own version of "Donna Lee" (the opening cut on his debut) and exhibiting the lightning-quick sixteenth-note playing that astounded all who saw him play. "John and Mary", named after his first two children, is a nice piece that includes what are probably the voices of the children, along with a happy chorus and Jaco's own inimitiable vocals as well. Altogether, a very good album, and worthwhile for anyone attracted to Jaco's "punk jazz".

Word of Mouth, Jaco Pastorius' second solo release from 1981, at the time was a eclectic collection of work that met with mixed reviews.

Since his untimely death, where listeners at large have delved into his recorded past, live and in studio, to satisfy the obvious void of not having him here today, this collection of work has grown into its own. What was once eclectic or odd to one's ears is now commonplace and dare say, has become my genrations jazz "standard".

Pastorius' background and influcences validate and solidfy this work. Jaco's big band original/arrangments such as Three Views of a Secret and Liberty City are direct products of his discovery and love for this style of music as a young boy listening to either tv show soundtracks and music as well as his Father's love for Sinatra's music growing up, to name a few. Combine that with his growing up to the sounds of the Beatles, James Brown etc etc and one can understand "where he was coming from".

The jewel here is "Three Views of a Secret", hands down regarded as the most beloved Pastorius original by his collegues, friends, family and fans, whether they are casual, one time or fulltime fans.

If there is once song to define where his career matured to or was heading, "Three Views" is it.

If you enjoy this tune then check out the 2 CD set called "Twins-The Jaco Pastorius Big Band Live in Japan", this is the completed unedited versions of the Big Band live. I highly recommend avoiding the badly edited versions released in the US as "Invitation".

"Twins" is worth its higher price tag and the search to find it.
Jack Frisch

For those of you who only revere Jaco's virtuoistic bass playing, this is not the cd for you. Get Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" and Jaco's debut album for that. Rather this is the album that revealed Jaco as potentially the most important big band jazz arranger since Duke Ellington, which tragically was not to be. His creativity and grasp of the sonic possibilities of a big band are amazing. Check out the subtlety of the orchestration on the free jazz blowout Crisis. Check out his use of steel drums and harmonica throughout. For my money, his arrangement of Blackbird is the best (and most twisted) cover of a Beatle's tune I've ever heard, honoring the original while expanding exponentially on its possibilities. It also doesn't hurt that Jaco has a veritable Who's Who of the jazz world playing on his record, all the height of their powers. In particular, check out Herbie Hancock's solo on Liberty City and Toots Thielmans on practically everything. They're both phenomenal. (For another great Herbie sideman performance, check out Milton Nascimento's Milton, a class Brazilian jazz album.) Essential. If you would like to read more reviews like this, check out JazzboNotes.com.

This is the expression of Jaco's musical talent at its best and under his own direction and with the best of sidemen.

"Crisis" is experimental, testing, and edgy. constructed around the forward charging, thumping bassline, the other musicians recorded seperately, each only able to hear the bassline. Can sound a bit abstract, but dont let this fool you. a very interesting way to hear the different ideas being expressed.

"Three Views of a Secret" is a masterpiece of Jazz composition. This is possibly Jaco's best compositon, and played here as it should be, with full accompaniment of a big band. simply excellent.

"Liberty City" is also another great composition, excellent dialogue between the band and jaco's bassline. clever use of inverted double stops.

"Chromatic Fantasy" Jaco's arrangement of Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue... A simply stunning and utterly beautiful display of Jaco's technical abilities on the bass. Perhaps even more impressive than his performance of "Donna Lee" Flows into Asian rhythms and orchestra work which flows directly into...

"Blackbird" Jaco's version of the Beatles song. Interesting dialogue between Jaco's bass and Thieleman's harmonica. First Jaco song I ever heard. needless to say, is special to me.

"Word of Mouth" raucous, wild, overdriven bass work. represents Jaco's Hendrix influence. a bit repetitive at times but is technically speaking nothing to shake a stick at.

"John and Mary" Beautiful composition with haunting piano, lyrical, dynamic and legato bass work, and an upbeat and fascinating theme. a gem.


Word of Mouth is an excellant display of Jaco's abilities as a musician. His wild side, his sensitive side, his incredible technical abilities, his wonderful compositional skills, all are represented well on thsi work. If you are a Jaco fan buy this album and give it many serious listenings. This is an incredible collection of music.

This album has mixed reviews, which is really pretty unbelievable. Not only does this album show Jaco's unbelievable skills on bass (Chromatic Fantasy, Blackbird), it also shows his outstanding abilities in the areas of composition (3 Views Of A Secret, John & Mary).

Don't listen to the naysayers. '3 Views of A Secret' is one of my favorite compositions of all time - and definitely worth the price of this cd by itself.

I actually didn't buy the album because all of the tracks, except one (crisis) are found on the "punk jazz" Jaco's collection, which I do have.
I listened to those tracks once and put the CD aside. I completely ignored those tracks; It took me 3 years to finally give it another try! I came to a period maturity in my life; I just used to love tons of notes, played as fast as possible, crazy solos... and this album seemed boring and confussing. But now I just think it's brilient! Every note is right where it should, the musicians are second to non! I listen to it all the time now! I recomend it highly. You'll love it (sooner or later ;)

Jaco Pastorius, the self-proclaimed (and just about rightfully so) best bassist in the world, was a huge star in 1980, when this album was recorded, thanks to his tenure in Weather Report. Thus, the recording company saw fit to give him nearly unlimited resources to see what his imagination could come up with. The result is "Word of Mouth," one of the most bizarre yet oddly likable albums I have ever heard. There is no list of musicians on the project (very frustrating) but we do know that harmonica player Toots Thielmans was heavily involved, as was drummer Peter Erskine, and pianist Herbie Hancock (I'm about 90% sure of this), and there are also significant contributions from Wayne Shorter and Michael Brecker. In addition, there are probably about 25 other musicians in the orchestral role in various places, and not just traditional big band instrumentation; I can hear french horns, tubas, steel drums, some strings, and various other colors. Jaco clearly had the green light to go nuts, and he does.

The album begins with "Crisis," a five-minute journey into the avant-garde in a way I've never heard before. Jaco plays a pulsing, throbbing fast eighth note bass line and various other soloists enter, contributing single note lines. Both Shorter and Brecker are present. "Three Views of a Secret" is a beautiful Jaco tune of Weather Report fame (my favorite track on "Night Passage") treated here as an orchestral piece with harmonica lead. I personally don't like this version as much as the WR version (Thielmans plays the melody a LOT straighter than Zawinul and especially Shorter) but it still has some cool moments in orchestration. Next is "Liberty City," my favorite tune on the album. It begins with an absolutely kickin' ensemble statement by just the horns before Jaco comes in with one of his signature grooves. The tune feels really good in this happy groove and there is some great piano soloing between ensemble statements. Jaco would continue to play this tune with his working big band and it got tighter every time; check out the version on "The Birthday Concert" to hear Michael Brecker go nuts.

From there, the album takes a left turn into even more wacky experimentation. Jaco redoes Bach's "Chromatic Fantasy" in a brilliant show of bass technique before settling into a groove which segues into an almost country-sounding version of Lennon and McCartney's "Blackbird," which in turn transitions into the title tune, which alternates between Hendrix-inspired heavily distorted arena rock and uptempo swing. The last tune, "John and Mary," is long and has several parts, including a couple of interludes with strange vocal whispering. One part sounds very much like Weather Report world fusion but with about ten instruments fulfilling the role that Joe Zawinul's synthesizers would take on (shows you just how busy the guy was). About two thirds of the way through there is also some chanting and wordless singing in a carribean type of groove, and the ending is reminiscent of a dramatic film score reaching its climax in glory. An interesting trip to say the least.

The first time I listened all the way through, I wasn't really paying attention, but then I listened a second time and found myself asking "what the..." every four minutes or so. I played it for about two weeks in my car at high volume levels and it began to give me symptoms of mild schizophrenia, but at the same time it grew on me. Actually none of my musician friends like it that much ("That's so weird, dude..."), even my Jaco-loving bass player, and once when I was playing it in the car on a long trip home at night, my dad woke up during "John and Mary" to comment "What is this? It sounds like Chinese birthday music!" Thus, I would not recommend this album to most people, especially beginners to jazz and to Jaco. Since the album concentrates more on Jaco's arranging and writing than on his playing, I wouldn't even necessarily recommend this to fans of Jaco's playing. Maybe I would recommend this to people who are extremely eclectic or perhaps a little insane. If this album does indeed sound interesting, check out the more accessible "Invitation" and "The Birthday Concert," Jaco's other big band projects. The latter in particular is a fantastic album and might shed some light on whatever it was Jaco was doing here. Don't get me wrong, I like this album a lot, but then I have strange taste. If you do too, go ahead and buy this for kicks.

When Weather Report started to be popular (never forget Birdland has passed on radio channels...), Warner Bros have seen in Jaco a future jazz-rock star so they gave him a total freedom and unlimited ressources to make the best album of jazz possible. Jaco invited all the excellent musicians he had gigged with by the time and they recorded Word of Mouth. Sadly, the sales were deceiving and Warner Bros canceled his contract, while Jaco was composing his -according to him- even better album. Only after this did his depression start. Watch out for anachronism, Mister "A MUSIC FAN"...