5. Jaco PastoriusWord Of Mouth

The Metheny record has Naná Vasconcelos on it, the Brazilian percussionist, and he’s the wild card on this record that really takes it into a strange place. I think in general, Brazilian music has a lot of strangeness, you know, a lot of weirdness that I love. He was driving it with Brazilian rhythms, but there was something very odd about it as well, something a little unsettling or a little humorous. His contribution to those Metheny records was a big influence on my new record too.

This Jaco record, Word of Mouth was a huge record for me when I was growing up, but I think this record is really, really under acknowledged for the experimentation on it. A lot of it is the production. I mean, he was a genius. But he wasn’t afraid to have a harmonica player and a steel drum player and a dog barking and birds in a birdcage, and all these things mixing together on a jazz record, it was very, very unusual and forward thinking.