Most of us that have played bass and love the fusion fretless sound, might consider Jaco Pastorius as the eminant leader of that sound... However, for me the Welshman Percy Jones has always been my favourite and most listened to fretless player. A genius in electronics and a 'radio ham' - Jones was responsible for desgining most of his signal processing equipment. He never fails to continually push the sonic envelope. Renowned for bringing Electric Wood's - WAL basses to the fore, Percy now uses this custom Ibanez five-string fretless. But Jones could probably get the same amazing sounds on a broom-handle strung with rubber bands! Brand-X - where most of us were first introduced to his amazing playing techniques, would never had made it so big, without his considerable input. The chemistry between Jones and the rest of the band was sublime. I would thus categorise Percy as a 'Lead Bass Player', perfectly matched to John Goodsall's (RIP) equally advernturous guitar forays.
One of the most interesting bass players on this planet and only 121 views ?! This is a very interesting video. Percy we love you. And even if I never can catch what you explain (I'm just a poor amateur) here, it's great to see it done. I love to try to play Disco Suicide, one of my favorite pie ces from all time…
Mind blower😅 to find this so glad that i did percy jones one of the BEST bassest he definitly has his own sound and style wow.this is unreal and the tunnels his band excellent to see them play. u need to check out tunels c.d.s and his solos c.d.s 😊
The master. I was blissfully content bashing away on my fretted 4001 until I heard Percy, which I still do when appropriate, but I always pull out the Fretless first and see if I can possibly work some Percy-isms into the proceedings. A total genius
Fabulous that this has been put up. Someone mentioned that he perhaps is in the league of Jaco. IMHO he’s actually a level above. This from someone who’s been following Brand X since their inception. And by the way, go back and listen to those first two Brand X records. The ones with Morris Pert, Phil Collins. I grew up in sort of a music hipsterville, Athens, Georgia. I remember when the REM guys were working as things like dishwasher and so forth. So going way way back. But it’s interesting that even amongst the folks that were heading into this misnamed thing called the new wave, there was overall admiration for Brand X versus the other fusion acts. They were doing something completely different. All the cool guys at the record stores were into it in addition to being in awe of new releases from bands no one had ever heard of like the Police or Elvis Costello or Ultravox or Magazine. All fabulous acts. But Brand X really did kind of bump into all of this new way of thinking about music. No wonder that in those truly breakthrough first four Brian Eno albums, that Percy Jones and Phil Collins figured in heavily. Re Brand X, Virtuosos to a person. Jones was so central to that. Such a unique sound as a band. Such a unique sound as a player. I still regularly go back and listen to those first two records, maybe also including the third and fourth. I’m still amazed at the ways they were pushing boundaries. Not at all linear like so many of the “progressive” or fusion acts at the time. Great great stuff. With a great great bass player!
It's mad,,, I loved John murphy (Thomas lang),he loved mick karn, mick karn loved this man,,, ffs,,, back to the drawing board..... all boss bass men .....😃
Ahhhh ! Percy Jones ! Il y a deux bassistes que j'ai écouté intensément à la fin des années '70 et début '80. Évidemment, le premier qui vient en tête, c'est Jaco Pastorius. Mais j'écoutais aussi beaucoup Brand X avec Percy Jones. Quand je mentionnais son nom à mes amis musiciens, on me répondait toujours : "Qui ?". C'est vraiment dommage que Percy Jones n'aie pas eu la reconnaissance qu'il méritait. Entre autres, écoutez l'album "Livestock' de Brand X...c'est avec "Nightmare Patrol" que je l'ai connu. Coup de foudre !
Jaco has been the greatest in (then) present day earthly bass playing. Percy Jones work was, is, will be about future and aliens. He is the only SCI-FI BASS PLAYER around.
