Jaco Pastorius – Truth, Liberty & Soul (2017) [HDTracks DSF DSD128/5.64MHz + FLAC 24bit/192kHz]

A first-time release comprising more than 130 minutes of extraordinary high-fidelity ground-breaking music, this previously unreleased live album by electric bass genius Jaco Pastorius and the Word of Mouth Big Band, featuring harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans as special guest, was recorded in analog 24 tracks by the Record Plant mobile truck at Avery Fisher Hall in NYC on June 27, 1982 as part of George Wein’s Kool Jazz Festival and is presented from beginning to end exactly as it happened. Mastered with 2xHD’s proprietary 2xHD Fusion Process it is now available in all high resolution formats on the 2xHD label.

The brightest star in the electric bass firmament, Jaco Pastorius burst onto the national scene in 1976 with his audacious self-titled album on Columbia Records, featuring a lineup of top jazz musicians. With his extraordinary fretless electric bass playing as the centerpiece, Jaco Pastorius created an immediate sensation with the public and the media. Jaco was a revelation; no one in jazz had ever played electric bass that way before. Jaco developed an influential approach to bass playing that combined the use of complex harmony with virtuosic technique. His signature approach employed Latin-influenced funk, lyrical solos on fretless bass, bass chords, and innovative use of harmonics. In Jaco’s work with Weather Report and beyond, the self-described “greatest bass player in the world” (an assessment shared with virtually the entire music world) established a new identity and role for his instrument and became the torchbearer for a new way of playing both technically and conceptually. But behind it all was an ever-present R&B and Latin-influenced groove and a screaming rock-‘n’-roll attitude that he refined and incorporated into sophisticated jazz harmonic structures.

In addition to his extraordinary virtuosity, Jaco was also developing into an accomplished and sophisticated composer and arranger and those talents that are gloriously on display on this album. He was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988, one of only seven bassists so honored (and the only electric bassist). His legacy as a bass innovator continues to this day, thirty years after his death in 1987.

Tracklist:
01 – Invitation
02 – Soul Intro – The Chicken
03 – Donna Lee
04 – Three Views of a Secret
05 – Liberty City
06 – Sophisticated Lady
07 – Bluesette
08 – I Shot the Sheriff
09 – Okonkole’ y trompa
10 – Reza – Giant Steps
11 – Mr. Fonebone
12 – Bass and Drum Improvisation
13 – Twins
14 – Fannie Mae

Recorded by Paul Blakemore in analog 24 tracks by the Record Plant mobile truck at Avery Fisher Hall in NYC on June 27, 1982 as part of George Wein’s Kool Jazz Festival and is presented from beginning to end exactly as it happened. Mastered with 2xHD’s proprietary 2xHD Fusion Process.

Produced for Release by Zev Feldman.
Sound Restoration by George Klabin & Fran Gala.
2xHD Mastering: René Laflamme. 2xHD Executive Producer: André Perry.

DSD128