The original Allman Brothers Band with Duane, Dickie and Berry was hard to beat on the two guitars and bass, and the drummers (Jaimoe and Butch) held their own as well. Not sure where to put Gregg as an organist, but his voice was special.
Just had to mention my favorite Southern Rock outfit.
Absolutely not. Voices, more than instruments, are utterly subjective, and while the Beatles could sing well enough to sell songs, they were not virtuosic singers. As far as technical ability is concerned, Ringo is the only one of the four who MAY have been in the top 1% of musicians on their instruments. Harrison was certainly a good guitar player, but I don’t know of anyone who thinks he could hang in with Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, or Mick Taylor. Paul McCartney played bass well enough, but it wasn’t his strong point; he’d never be mistaken for Jaco Pastorius or Ron Carter, or even Jack Bruce or John Entwisle. The Beatles main accomplishments stemmed from their creativity and intrepid willingness to try things that no one else would touch–as well as the knack to pull those things off. When John Lennon threw together a pickup band for ‘The Great Rock & Roll Circus’ called The Dirty Mac, with Clapton on lead guitar, Keith Richards on bass, and Mitch Mitchell on drums, he had a much better band, in terms of technical ability, than he ever had with the Beatles.
By contrast, Sting’s first band as a solo artist had Branford Marsalis on saxophone, Kenny Kirkland on keys, and Omar Hakim on drums. Marsalis and Kirkland were arguably the best in the world at the time, and Hakim was easily in the top 1% of drummers.
I saw that line-up (when they were recording the live concert film/album “Bring On The Night”) back when I was just 14 or 15 years old, though having no idea at how much World-Class on-stage talent I was listening to at one time; Absolutely amazing show…
Deep Purple: Jon Lord (keyboard), Ritchie Blackmore (guitar) and Ian Paice (drums)
Got to be!
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Jaco Pastorius is one of those players who’s reputation seems to have grown exponentially after his untimely death. His blackout alcoholism was really the stuff of legend (“Jaco PassedOutOnUs”) maybe moreso than his actual playing. There are many, many bass players around who are easily more talented than ever Jaco was, even at his very best. Dying young, under murky circumstances was his true lasting legacy, not for any groundbreaking work on a bass guitar.
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I’ve barely listened to anything by Weather Report, but I have never heard ANY bass playing as good as Jaco Pastorius on Joni Mitchell’s Talk To Me and Coyote. But especially Talk To Me. I’ve never heard anyone who could make the bass “talk” like that. The weird way Jaco mixed harmonics and pitch bends with the percussive rhythm of the bass is pretty unparallelled. If he’s not your cup of tea, no problem, but his technique is definitely unique enough to put him in the top 1%.
I really like Jaco’s bass playing on Joni Mitchell’s stuff, but I just don’t think it puts him in the top one percent of professional musicians. That is an incredibly high bar to surmount, and I just don’t think he is in that rarefied group…
Ahem.
Jaco Pastorius is undoubtedly one of the best bass players living or dead. More influential than any other. Those that remember him only as a dead junkie have the wrong end of things. Look into any bass community and he will be in the top five, at worst.
Paul McCartney also is a very good influential player. Also top of bass community polls. Add Geddy Lee of Rush.
Not my opinions- these are names that regularly come up in bass polls.
I am aware that Jaco Pastorius is fondly remembered by many, but I still don’t think his playing merits including him as one of the all time greats. I fully believe his early death is in large part due to his exalted reputation, much like how others who died young, especially due to lifestyle choices or wierdo accidents often become deified in the minds of some of their fans. (“The Graham Parsons Effect” AKA “Jim Morrison Syndrome”)
Also, I have NEVER heard one serious bass affectionado try and claim that Paul McCartney’s instrumental skills on bass guitar was anything besides usually serviceable. You can make the point for his huge influence on popular music, but it was thru his songwriting and vocal skills not for his mediocre bass playing…
The John Coltrane Quartet with Trane on sax, Elvin Jones on drums, and McCoy Tyner on piano.
Really? I regularly hear him held up as an innovator and influence. And excellent as a player. I think of McCartney’s approach to recording bass as a key inflection point between recordings sounding old and those that still sound fresh today. His approach set the standard.
Well, I don’t want to derail the thread, and I am certainly not an expert, but you seem to be talking more about technical aspects of studio playing/recording, and I was thinking more along the lines of live performance. I guess I should have defined my terms better.
That said, Paul McCartney is no one’s definition of an exceptional, World-Class instrumentalist on bass guitar, and I would bet just about anything that he himself would fully agree with my assessment on his live bass chops.
I’m not sure what the feelings are on drummer Dave Rowntree, but Blur had Alex James on bass, Graham Coxon on guitar, and Damon Albarn on – well, weirdness. All at the top of their respective instruments.
Two things. There have to be far more than 10,000 albums released across genres every year, maybe more than 100,000 in recent years. And we’re talking about every band in every country around the world since WWII, apparently. I’d guess that we’re talking 500,000-1,000,000 names at every position.
Realistically, any person from any band who is famous makes the cut under those conditions. We’re probably mentioning the top 1% of that top 1%.
Numbers stop meaning anything at that point. You might as well ask who are among the top 1% of most beautiful women since WWII. Don’t overthink it. Just admire.
I would put all four members of Queen in the top 1%.
I consider myself a bass afficianado - I played bass in a garage band for about 2 years and threw myself fanatically into analysing the bass playing in the music I listen to in an attempt to pick up ideas and techniques. While I no longer play - I don’t have the time and my bandmates moved away - I still listen a lot. And I think Paul was a truly phenomenal bassist and totally underrated. Many serious musicians I know feel the same way. Paul’s bass lines provide a major component of the melody on many Beatles’ tunes, especially on Abbey Road. Come Together, Oh, Darling, and the entire “medley” section especially. Sun King is totally dominated by Paul’s bass.
I don’t know what Paul sounds like live, and it doesn’t matter to me because the Beatles were always a studio band. MPB, who do you think are, say, the top 5 bassists in rock?
Fair question, and most certainly a different answer than who my personal favorites are.
Let me think on it, as I am actually out the door to see Tom Tom Club, featuring Tina Weymouth (on bass) and husband Chris Frantz, both formerly of Talking Heads, play live tonight…
Very, very odd to see a thread with people arguing that Jaco Pastorius was not in the top 1% of working bass players and that Paul McCartney was.
I realize that this is not definitive, but McCartney didn’t play much bass during his solo days (from 1982 on or so), leaving that largely to session players. I can’t see a real elite instrumentalist like Eric Clapton doing something like that.
As a player, I’d put McCartney in with someone like Muddy Waters–very good, and probably a contributor to the vocabulary of the instrument, but not elite technically.
Gregg’s organ playing fits nicely into his spot in the band and filled out their sound, but even in the old days when he was a slightly more adventurous soloist, I don’t think a lot of people would have said he was one of the greats that way. I don’t know enough about drums to evaluate Butch and Jaimoe - I can say that it’s incredible how much energy Butch plays with even today - but I can say they are one of the great drum teams for sure. Duane and Dickey and Berry were all fantastic.
Yeah, I’m a little confused about where this is coming from. I don’t think any of the Beatles would have held themselves up as virtuoso technicians, but Paul was a very innovative bass player. That applies to the way he recorded himself and the kinds of lines he played. There is always a lot going on in Beatles songs, but when I focus on his playing my admiration always goes up.
Word.
I wonder if the McCartney debate is another instance of the SDMB phenomenon where some people respond to a thread’s title while others respond to its OP.
If you focus on the title, McCartney is one of the top 1% bass players in the world according to several interpretations of “top.” But the OP specifies “virtuousos,” which isn’t the best description for McCartney’s approach to bass-playing.
Fair. Sorry for the drift. This thread should probably focus more strictly on technique. I put Keith Richards at the top of Field General Rhythm Guitarists™ but I suspect tha is a bit off the OP’s topic 