Word of Mouth

[Note: This product is an authorized, licensed CD and is manufactured on demand]

In 1981, while still with Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius amassed this unremitting, topnotch big band into which he threads anything that appealed to his vast jazz imagination--from the bell-clanging Caribbean to the burning soul of R&B to the jaunty European boulevards. On board are Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Peter Erskine, Jack DeJohnette, Michael Brecker, Don Alias, and others. The result is skirmishing, scurrying, all-in slabs of sound that suddenly give way to fluid quietude with chorus and strings and, most wonderfully weirdly, to harmonica features from Toots Thielemans. Pastorius is always close to the front, a fretless-bass phenom who out-guitared most guitarists. He also wrote and arranged well, taking care not to let vim and pepper do all the talking. --Peter Monaghan