Jaco Pastorius Pentatonic Bass Riff (from "River People")

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I've been wanting to share some of my favorite Jaco Pastorius bass riffs with you guys for a while, and this one seemed like a good place to start! You can hear it featured prominently towards the end of Weather Report's "River People," and also on a lot of different live Jaco Pastorius albums.

The right hand gets most of the workout on this riff. I've indicated my favorite fingering on the sheet music, but I talk you through a couple other options in the video.

This Jaco riff contains no thirds, which means it's ambiguous enough to use on a minor 7 chord or a dominant 7/dominant 7 sus chord. And you can play with starting on a non-root note to get even more tonal colors out of it. We'll also explore changing the note around while maintaining the same arrangement of notes and plucking pattern.