Multiquarium Big Band featuring Bireli Lagrene - Remembering Jaco

 

180-gram double LP box set

2020 album from Multiquarium Big Band feat. Biréli Lagrène is a tribute

Pays homage to his friend and bassist from Weather Report, Jaco Pastorius

Includes bonus track and a bonus side of improvisations + unreleased photos

Jaco Pastorius is well worth remembering, so this new album by French big band Multiquarium would be welcome for that reason alone, writes Peter Jones for London Jazz News.

Remerbering Jaco " is a tribute to Jaco Pastorius's music, made by André Charlier (drums) and Benoit Sourisse (piano) from the Multiquarium Big band, one of the best French Big Bands. Jaco Pastorius is a big star in the jazz-rock scene (and beyond), an icon for the bass players all around the world, the one who brought to electric bass the possibility of becoming in some case a soloist instrument in a band.

Pastorius made very famous solo albums and wrote amazing big band music. The virtuoso gypsy guitar player, Biréli Lagrène, has been invited to play electric fretless bass on the album. Biréli, who, as a young genius of the guitar, began to play in Montreux when he was 14, he is now 50 and played one year and a half with Jaco Pastorius on stage when he was 19 years old. Biréli is an amazing bass player, he perfectly integrated how Jaco's Music was working and pushed it beyond its borders.

The vinyl edition is a luxurious 2LP box set (180-gram) with a bonus track and a bonus side of improvisations + two unreleased photos of Jaco & Bireli on stage.

"This is a superior collection by any standards. No single arranger is credited: one can only assume the job was a collaboration instigated by the band's leaders, drummer André Charlier and pianist/organist Benoît Sourisse. Meanwhile, Biréli Lagrène (best known as a guitarist, although he sticks to fretless bass here), has the almost impossible task of living up to Pastorius's legacy. Lagrène has certainly earned the right: as a guitarist, he played and recorded with Jaco, and was co-credited with him on the posthumous 1986 album Stuttgart Aria.

"And what an astonishing player he is. Just listen to the intro to Invitation which the band plays at around 160bpm with Lagrène pumping out the sixteenth notes with the greatest of ease. Personally, as a long-time admirer of the great Laurence Cottle (not to mention Laurence's disciple Janek Gwizdala), that makes my head spin. I would add that anyone who is still suspicious of the Pastorius style, regarding the very concept of 'lead bass' as a contradiction, might do well to give this a listen. Producer Charlier has sensibly avoided mixing Lagrène too high, so that his playing doesn't dominate: he blends in beautifully." — Peter Jones, London Jazz News, October 20, 2020

 

SIDE A:

1. Introduction by Peter Erskine

2. Used To Be a Cha Cha

3. Barbary Coast

4. Interlude #1 by Peter Erskine

5. Liberty City (intro) / Invitation

SIDE B:

1. Continuum

2. Kuru / Speak Like a Child

3. Interlude #2 by Peter Erskine

4. Teen Town

5. Three Views Of a Secret

SIDE C:

1. The Chicken (ON VINYL ONLY!)

2. Fanny Mae

3. Palladium

4. Conclusion by Peter Erskine

SIDE D:

1. Improvisation #1 (ON VINYL ONLY!)

2. Improvisation #2 (ON VINYL ONLY!)

3. Improvisation #3 (ON VINYL ONLY!)

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