WORD OF MOUTH

Jaco Pastorius (1951 - 1987) wasn't a modest musician. He used to call himself the best bass player in the world, but that wasn't empty talk for sure. His short career included playing for Weather Report, Blood Sweat & Tears, Joni Mitchell and others, and he also recorded a few albums as the group leader and composer.

Word of Mouth is a work for a large ensemble; most noticeably it contains lots of reeds, harmonica (Toots Thielemans) and percussion. Jaco handles also keyboards. The seven tracks vary between near-3 minutes and 12 minutes. 'Crisis' is a very hectic and nervously busy piece that gives me very little enjoyment. '3 Views of a Street' is relaxed like a balmy summer day and gives a central role to harmonica.

'Liberty City' starts with a sharp and fast brass intro and soon settles on a nice groove starring bass, piano, percussion (incl. steel drums) and reeds. Otherwise enjoyable, but 12 minutes of it is too much. 'Chromatic Fantasy' is based on a Bach tune; after the bass solo it gets quite an experimental mess of mainly percussion and reeds.

'Blackbird', the shortest track, is naturally the McCartney evergreen. The melody is loosely played by bass and harmonica while the sharp percussion makes it excitingly edgy. The title track is hectic like the opener. 'John and Mary' is the other long piece (10:53) and perhaps the easiest track to enjoy. It has some Pat Metheny reminding airiness and the biggest amount of lyricless vocals. In the halfway it fades and continues, for a couple of minutes before returning to the main groove, in completely another style.

This is admittedly a very personal and eclectic fusion album. At times I'm mildly charmed by it, but most of the time frankly not at all, in the sonic sense. I'm not fond of brass orientation, steel drums or harmonica, and there's not much of fresh melodies on the whole album. Three subjective stars.