js Jaco Pastorius' debut album certainly got a lot of attention in the jazz world. In 1976 there wasn't a bass player alive who had not heard, and consequently had not been blown away by Jaco's version of 'Donna Lee' that opens this album. When it came out, this album was revolutionary in the world of bass playing, and most bassists probably still consider it a five star album to this day, but how does it sound to us regular folks. Jaco certainly goes for the eclectic approach on this album, touching on RnB, neo-classical, be-bop, world beat, ambient and a few styles of his own invention. Probably the nicest cuts on the album feature Herbie Hancock and a string ensemble playing some sophisticated Jaco compositions that are a third stream cross between jazz and 20th century neo-classical. My other favorites include two semi-ambient pieces that feature Jaco playing the bass as if it were a tuned percussion instrument.

The rest of the album consists of a couple of upbeat world-jazz numbers that show what direction Jaco would be taking Weather Report to, an outdated shot at commercial RnB with Sam n Dave, and a couple of solo straight ahead jazz numbers that highlight Pastorius's obvious skills on the bass.

Once upon a time this album was 'the shot heard round the world' for bass players, it still is highly influential and contains some nice sophisticated music for us non-bassists as well.

SaltyJon This was my second Jaco album. As a bassist, I felt compelled to check out his self-titled album, and of course I fell in love with it (and still love it dearly to this day). This one is another fun slice of music, though not everything on this live disc is up to the same standards. Things get off to an excellently groovy start, with Soul Intro/The Chicken. Jaco was such a groovy bassist, and this song shows off just how well he could sit in the pocket and have fun with it. So right out of the gates it really drew me in. The version of Continuum here isn't all that great though. Invitation has some good parts and some bad, but overall I think it's a bit stretched out. The album has more ups and downs, and some of it seems to come across as nothing much more than typical big band jazzy stuff. Not a bad thing, but not exactly what I was expecting from Jaco. Liberty City, Reza and Domingo are some other favorites of mine from this album.

For fans of Jaco, this one's a pretty safe bet. For anyone else, I'd say it's good if you like this style of music, so I'll give it a healthy 3 stars. The good songs are great, but some of the material just isn't quite up to par with the rest.