You're absolutely right, Wolf. Brilliantly put.
I can't believe how badly I expressed my point, which is that the bass parts I listened to and emulated as a lad sound horrible when isolated. It's only when they're mixed that they fit perfectly. I never knew Jamerson's bass sounded distorted at all, much less gaseous, like someone breaking wind through a tuba, underwater.
What Alembic owner can't play every note of My Generation in their head? Roundabout? Superstition? That - and nothing else - is what makes us bassists. The simple, utter fact that we NOTICED THE BASS.
That's what I think of when someone (mis)uses the term influences. The physical ability to replicate a bassline note for note is the only alternative to being influenced by a bassist, I think. Otherwise you're automatically playing like you, regardless.
I built my own copy of Jaco's bass out of stuff laying around the music store repair shop I worked at. (Okay, I may have substituted stock Guild pickups for the EMGs and used a fretless Chandler neck off a trade-in). I bought the (VHS) videotape of Jaco's Modern Electric Bass (it's probably on YouTube by now) because I was determined to learn to play like that.
Then I got a gig playing upright bass for a band called Roomful of Blues and did a lot of rockabilly and blues gigs. No room for any Jaco or Entwistle tomfoolery there.
Somewhere in there I got a gig with a kick-ass country-rock band for six years. I survived winters in New England by whompin' out Gimme Three Steps and George Strait belly-rubbers for drunk Yankees in western garb.
The self-expression aspects of high-speed bass hijinks went out the door quick, and I didn't really have any choice in the matter. It was a professional family band, four guys who had been singing together all their lives. It was just incredible.
But your point is taken: there's some Jaco in there (especially because my Alembic is my only fretted bass). Do that little bup-de-bupBUP! Thing Jaco did at the end of the phrases in Teen Town, y'know? Slip it in there when nobody's looking... Yeah, like that.
To be honest, I always liked to see how many ways I could use the opening riff from Frank Zappa's I'm The Slime in country ballads. (A lot.)
My favorite thing about playing upright is that everyone else automatically assumes mistakes are their fault. Really. I'm not kidding. You can go plonking down a I-IV-II-V turnaround on your own and instantly everything crashes around you, and everybody looks at YOU sheepishly, shrugging and going; oops! Sorry!
I'm sorry, but there was a school shooting at a college about fifteen miles from where I sit and I have no clue what I'm babbling about. Ten people dead so far. I'm numb.
