"Teen Town" by Jaco Pastorius (L#107)

The tune "Teen Town" was written by the legendary bass player and composer Jaco Pastorius and was one of the stand out tracks on the 1977 "Heavy Weather" album recorded by the boundary breaking jazz ensemble Weather Report. For me, it's not only one of the most important compositions i've ever studied, but in a way, at the time of first discovering the works of Weather Report and Jaco Pastorius, it is one of the most important compositions i've ever heard as it completely changed the way I viewed the bass guitar and how the instrument could function within an ensemble.

In this lesson I take this legendary composition and break it down piece by piece, phrase by phrase. This not only gives you the chance to learn the tune, but even more importantly it gives you the chance to start to understand exactly why it works harmonically, and the way the melody fits within the chords as they pass by.

If you haven't used study pieces before, now's the time to start. By taking a composition such as this and studying it over an extended period of time looking into the technical and harmonic challenges within it, it gives you a different type of focus and learning experience. It's all about the long game, it's not about being able to play it straight away and moving onto the next shiny object. If focused and thorough you'll be rewarded with bass awesomeness ;)

As always, see you in the shed...

Scott :)