On October 7, 1985, legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius visited Musicians Institute for a clinic and performance. We have previously posted a short clip of this 1985 visit from Jaco, but this new footage from Patrick Buchmann is remastered from Its original VHS cassette version, and better captures the excitement at MI from his visit.
Buchmann shared, “I actually got my first copy from Pat Hicks, former owner, and CEO of MI, right after I played with Jaco that day…He made me promise not to share it, which I did (until now).”
Jaco shared some thoughts about writing music and the music business and he would later on play along with Frank Gambale (guitar) and Buchmann (drums,) who were both teachers at MI at the time.
Buchmann told us a bit of background on his MI connection and how he acquired this rare footage:
“I am a March 1984 PIT graduate. I stayed in the U.S. and Pat Hicks offered me to be the head of the upcoming 11 weeks Summer Session: rewriting the curriculum, organizing and hiring the teachers, and also teaching myself. An amazing experience I reiterated in ’85! Meanwhile, I was teaching at MI during the regular year classes, which gave me incredible opportunities, like playing with Jaco, Frank Gambale, Jeff Berlin, Scott Henderson, Putter Smith, Ron Eshete, among others.”
This rare footage is also special because it includes a jam with Jeff Berlin, which would be the only time they played together (that we know.)
Buchmann continues,
“I thought it was important to make this 130-minute long historic footage available to everyone in the best possible restored version with proper subtitles. Part 4 was never released in any way and Part 5 is only a 2-minute video on Jeff Berlin’s website. He also got that copy from Pat Hicks at the time.”
Watch Part 1 through Part 5 of the video performances below:
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