Drummer Bob Moses talks about Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius 

Moses is a living legend whose music needs to be recognized big time!

Wandered down a YT link and found Bob playing an African-rhythm inspired solo in '74 with superb power and control. His praise of Pat and Jaco expresses his joy in playing with two other supreme artists and how human nature can be so cohesive and diverse at the same time; Pat not getting the funk maybe his loss, JP was our gain for too short a time..

I love Bob Moses and Bright Size Life is one of my favorite albums on the planet. Thank you for this interview.

Even though the Pat Metheny trio with Bob Moses and Jaco Pastorius was very short lived, what an amazing collection of talent in one band. Bright Size Life was such an important and historic album that has gone on to become legendary. In my honest opinion, i would say that Jaco's best bass playing was with Pat, they matched up so well together, i really wished we got to hear more from them and i loved the drumming of Bob's, it sounded so tight. What a treat to hear 3 amazing musicians at the top of their game.

Love seeing brother Bob, it's been a couple of decades since we last saw each other. A great human being besides a world class musician.

NOTHING sounds like BSL - a musical treasure!!!

I love Jaco forever!! ❤️❤️❤️🌹🌹🌹❤️❤️❤️

I used to go to Poohs Pub and enjoy the PM Trio ,when I was a Berklee student. I met Jaco and asked him about Wayne Cochrane, and talked to me about Coon Asses !!! Great Guy!!!!

This is a wild story. Moses knew what he was doing back then. Dave Holland is one of my favourite players, and he plays well with Pat, but this band was all about Jaco and Moses. Thinking what this album would have sounded like with Dave on the bass and another drummer makes me very curious. If Moses left, Manfred probably would have called Jack DeJohnette, and that would have been a killer album too, albeit with a more typical ECM sound. I just love listening to Bob Moses talk. He tells it like it is. He's honest when he speaks, and his music is so genuine.

Thank you, Bob! Knew Jaco and you capture his spirit well.

I met Bob at a wedding in the Boston area. He was playing drums apparently filling in for a drummer that was ill at last second. He had these drum sticks that looked like he got off the tree in his backyard. 😂 Interesting guy.

I feel very fortunate to have shared the stage with Bob. It was a project called MSG. Moses, So and Gardner. Two drummers (me and Bob) and a great songwriter Kevin So. It was a blast to improvise and connect with Bob both on and off stage!

interviews with drummers is a good idea

with all respect for a bass giant like Mr. Holland i am glad that Metheny wanted to put his foot down. it could have been a good record for sure, but not the gem we all know today. even if the recording doesn't fully reflect the spirit of their trio. go listen to their bootlegs like the one at the Pooh's pub and you'll know what i mean. there is a way different energy level. i love that record anyway, it is still fresh and modern like if it was recorded a few months ago. thanks Mr. Samo and Mr. Bob for this beautiful interview

I saw Bob in a performance many years ago. One of the most creative drummers I ever seen.

Ra Kalam Bob Moses. There's an amazing 2020 record he did w/ pianist/keyboardist Aydin Esen called 'Fly' that is something else.

I could not have said it better myself.. Jaco was absolutely untouchable...He is an island unto himself..

Pat did an interview with Rick Beato recently where he talked about BSL and how Gary Burton was really the 'producer' of the record and Manfred Eicher was the hammer, so to speak. Gary probably went to bat for Jaco, because he, too, wanted Jaco in there. Pat knew what he wanted from the beginning, and it really ruffled Manfred that he couldn't reign him in. That conflict made for some excellent albums, that's for sure.

2 things ..it's great that pat stood up for HIS musicians on that first date and...50 bucks a night in 1973 was decent money for a gig..lol

Fantastic interview.

Ra Kalam Bob Moses, one of a kind as a drummer and a free being!

Great job by Mr. Moses explaining it all.

Bought the record when it came out. All three players contribute greatly to the success.

This was quite interesting.

Incroyables histoires, c'est toujours une surprise de découvrir les coulisses de la création d'un album de légende comme celui-ci, et de se rendre compte qu'on est presque à chaque fois si loin des conditions qu'on a imaginées dans lesquels ces musiciens se sont rencontrés, ont enregistré, ont vécu ensemble. Merci Bob. Et, n'en doutez (plus), Bright Size Life est un joyau de la musique de l'ère moderne.

I remember meeting BOB MOSES way back … He’s such an amazing and unique character … Such a great & innovative musician who was so humble and approachable … 1st time I saw and met BOB MOSES in person was one time he was playing drums right outside of TOWER RECORD in New York City … Man he was so unique … and yet he was so friendly & approachable … He gave me his unique business card … wit unique concepts and philosophy It left a lasting impression …. How being such an innovative artist … yet so friendly a guy

Dave Holland with Pat and Bob would love to hear some of those recordings.

Thank you so much for this wonderful interview. I have fond memories of the peerless Bob Moses from my time as a student at the New England Conservatory of Music, way back in the 1980s. The enthusiasm that Bob brought to his role as an instructor was off the hook! After one hour of Bob leading your jazz ensemble class, you were charged up and motivated for a whole week! When Bob gave a performance at the conservatory, he danced and rapped! It was exactly what that stuffy environment needed. I did not know that Bob barely listened to BSL.

What a treasure! Thanks !!

I saw the Gary Burton Quintet at Ebbets Field in Denver way back in the mid-70's. That was Burton, Metheny, Steve Swallow, Mick Goodrick, and Bob Moses. And I clearly remember, despite all the tremendous talent on that stage, being MOST impressed with Bob Moses. So creative and original.

What a great interview! Thank you for sharing this insight!

Cool interview on a great moment of recording history!

MidWestern Night’s Dream is a great song and there’s several overdubs on this track. Firstly Pat Metheny overlays a second guitar on the intro and Jaco overdubs the outro melody and then doubles it. The whole album has amazing sound for 1974, Bob Moses’ bass drum can be clearly felt irrespective of speaker size or quality. One of my favourite albums of all time!

Great! Thanks for posting. Btw, Bill Minkowski's Book on Jaco has a lot of the backstory on this record from Bob's perspective too..

Wow!! Thanx for this great interview!!!

Great channel! I am really enjoying hearing the behind the scene stories of some of my favorite music and I'm really enjoying this episode as Metheny's seminal "Bright Sized Life" is an all-time favorite. Thanks, and bring some more :)

As Pat said, “in my case (to Jaco) ‘don’t play so many notes!’”. Jaco was great, but it was literally Pat’s group AND compositions.

Bob’s playing on pat’s record and with Hal galper and the Brecker bros. is smokin!

I wish that trio had made a few more albums. I like the usual ECM material, but it can be a bit precious.

Thanks for sharing.....lovely interview about an important piece of work 🙂

Thank you for sharing this Samo

thank you. so interessting. ❤

i’ve spent so much time with this record over the years, it’s funny to think he only listened to it a handful of times. great interview thanks 🙏

I read Bill Milkowski's Jaco biography back in the late 1990s. Bob Moses said the same things back then he's saying here, so he's consistent. I also heard Pat Metheny in interview say the same things about having to get it in one take at ECM. And just finally had enough after ten years and left the label.

Lovely ❤this album will be forever my favorite of all time, though I never get along with Pat's style of playing guitar. Jaco is that magic and it's so pitty for the music he passed away too early...but that's how it goes with the GOATs 🤷‍♂ 🙏

Bob is modest; I was working in a record store in 1975 and we got this album in and a guitar major opened it up and put side 2 on. Midwestern nights dream, I remember it like yesterday; the first thought in my head was who the F is that drummer, the cymbals were miked perfectly and he really sounded hip for a ECM drummer.

Incredible that information!!!! Thank you very much!!!!!

I saw Jaco in 1982 perform live with his band on a solo tour after he left Weather Report

Great interview, he pretty much confirmed all Mikowski wrote on his book about Jaco. I wish I could had been at the places where they played live, from what I read it was 10 times better than the album.

Great stuff, man!

They must have been so much more vivid live. When I first listened to the record (age 17) I founded the album interesting but just a bit boring. But everyone with authority said this record is one of the best trio jazz recordings of all times so I had the impression that in order to become a valid jazz guitarist I had to approach the recording as a superlative recording. So I listened over and over again until I believed it´s exactly that. This interview is so fascinating because BM reveals what has been kind of hidden by the Ludwigsburg production.

Bob, if you’re reading these, I’ve been wanting to play w you for 40 years. Got to play and record w Yusef when I was in MA but never got to work with you.

the Zircon club in Cambridge - September 1975

Pat:"Jaco it's not a reggae its a waltz". LOL

One has to wonder whether Metheny didn’t play over the changes to “Omaha Celebration” on the LP in order to give Jaco some funk space.

Jewels from Bob Moses. Info about Dave Holland very interesting especially in light of Holland's stylistic emphasis nowadays. He's now the funkiest upright player around.

Very interesting! Thanks again for the great interview! Saw Bob with Wayne Horvitz and Bill Frisell at the Bath House Theater in Seattle, in 88 or 89. Bill and Wayne had just moved there with their families from New York. Wayne and Bill kept smiling at each other when Bob would go off on his African funky beats. Wonderful gig that night! Those were the golden years!

Too bad that they didn't make at least another album.When you listen to the live RU-vid take..it's not at all like the album as Bob Moses said.And it's great that Pat Metheny stood up for his musicians...the album sold very , very modestly but it is now from what I understand it's in the Smithsonian of historical recordings. Pat Metheny had only been playing guitar for only 5 - 6 years not bad peaches baby.

be great to get some of that funk from the BSL trio

Great interview ! Thanks. And by the way who's playing behind the "Dr. Jazz" announcement intro ? sounds great !

Bright Size Life - a staple in my collection, same as it ever was! Good chat going on 👍

…..👍

dig

Dude looks like Griffin Ronnie the limo driver.

Eicher seems to be quite a c...

"Whitest" in this context really means 'cerebral'. Funk is butt, which is the opposite of brain. There's a place for funk. But it doesn't go everywhere. I won't allow it in my music at all. I consider it musical pollution. Obviously, Jaco had plenty of his own cerebral. No dis, at all.

Why drugs or alcohol should have slow down creativity ? Most of Genius have tested that path ! OSrorry the right thinking isn't that ??

Jaco wasn't a jazz player.. He should have kept his talent to his own bands except maybe joni Mitchell Some people can have too much talent Suppose in hindsight he had every right to go where his talent took him I just wish he'd never joined WR, He turned them into Latin funk.. that's too much for my ears except his last one night passage

i won't listen to grown men use fowl language. ewww...gross.

This is the interview I have been waiting for......

I wish I had seen this trio live. Unfortunately I didn’t know about Pat because my knowledge of jazz consisted of Miles Davis and The Mahavishnu Orchestra as far as modern jazz , Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller and Stan Kenton older Jazz.

❤