This morning, TeeGee opened an inspiration play list with “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat” from Jeff Beck:
And while chatting a bit about Tal Wilkenfeld (the great bass player you see there playing with Jeff), I wrote that until now I only knew the version from Joni Mitchell, who also had one of the great bass players joining her, Jaco Pastorius:
And while Joni’s complete LP “Mingus” is of course a tribute to Charles Mingus who wrote the song, his version and composition is a tribute to Lester Young who wore that pork pie hat – see the German and English Wikipedia pages about the song (yes it has these! And the German one even has a bit of bass score on it!). So here is Charles’ original song. from his album “Mingus Ah Um”:
So there you have it. A great song from a great bass player, covered by other great bass players. The original is two years younger than me.
And, as some say about Jaco, he did some great work with Joni – maybe the best. If you want to learn from a living player, check out Tal – she’s also great!
And goodbye, pork pie hat – thanks for your work as well!
Hope you enjoyed it.