[lucasgw]

Listen to Les, and hear the technique and round sound of Jaco Pastorius. (or at least I do.)

Listen to Portrait of Tracy (or any great harmonic jazz) and you hear the same open chord structures of Impressionist works like Debussy's Preludes or Ravel's Valse Nobles.

Listen to the impressionists and you go many places...

Ravel and Debussy's piano music is barely one step removed from jazz. Makes sense, because the early jazz greats lived and played around the same time. There's a famous picture of Ravel at a birthday party when he was in his 50s, with George Gershwin standing beside him. The early 1900s was an amazing time in music... classical was mixing with early jazz was mixing with vaudeville was mixing with the first stirrings of delta blues was mixing with gospel was mixing with african folks songs...

(I can do this all night... ;)