I finally saw it. Worth it, as an overview of his career, music, innovations, and tragic descent. But more so because his family was involved - it’s not white-washed, because his ego and descent couldn’t be covered up - but it is loving and respectful. And intimate with home movies and stories from his kids today b
Man, Joe Zawinul sounds like a jerk, in a stereotypical Eastern European taskmaster who has more sadism than disciplined intentions would require sorta way. His relationship to Jaco makes a movie like Whiplash look like the kiddie pool of dysfunction. Rejecting Jaco’s brilliant compositions as child’s play while Jaco desperately, in a damaged way, sought his approval.
Mostly though I came away in awe of Jaco’s genius. Flea sums him up as the Hendrix of bassists and the case is made easy in the documentary. So musical, so innovative. And ultimately, so sad.
I saw it. It was interesting but not particularly well done.
He was an amazing bassist and led an interesting life.
I do disagree with your assessment that it was not white washed. I feel it was heavily so. They skimmed over his illness and barely mentioned his tremendous problems with alcohol and drugs.
One thing that struck me, and confirmed what I’d noticed from many YouTube searches, was that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of good quality live video of him performing.
White SIFL - I thought it was pretty clear he was a mess and treated those around him roughly as he descended into his problems. Perhaps I filled in parts that the film didn’t dig into, but I was okay with that.
Doug K - I know! Surprising how little footage is. Interesting how just as recently as the 1970’s, our “record everything” mindset of today is shown to be different.
I mentioned this in a discussion of the documentary of Big Star, the tragic power-pop band from the 70’s. Chris Bell, one of the co-founders, appears to have no video, either of playing or of being interviewed. That is astounding to me.
My Jaco story: I met with a group of fellow runners on Saturday mornings at a Fort Lauderdale, FL, park. One week Jaco was biking past after we finished our run. He stopped and chatted with a few people about what we were doing. He was over the top amazed that we ran as far as we did. He seemed to be either drunk or strung out on something. I’m guessing this was only a few weeks before he died.
I didn’t recognize him. I was vaguely familiar with his name, but didn’t really know who or what he was all about. Just a random brush with someone who was famous, but I didn’t really know why he was famous. Other than it was music related.
The one thing that bugged me was the not just presence of but that they gave the last word to that friggin’ Flea, who isn’t even worthy to mow Jaco’s lawn.
Surely* you acknowledge that regardless of your POV, Flea is held up as one of the best of his generation of rock bassists, right? So it is easy to see why he would be recruited and used because folks who don’t know Jaco are more likely to know Flea and choose to check out the doc.
Flea did a good thing, didn’t he? Heck, they have Sting in there and you don’t see me complaining because I respect that he is a brilliant musician and songwriter who adds cache to Jaco’s reputation.
No Berlin, and nothing of Stanley Clarke except for a snippet or two of him playing. No clue of Clarke’s and Jaco’s relationship back in the day, nor with Berlin or some of the other jazz heavyweights from back in the day.