Jaco Pastorius

Jaco Pastorius

John Francis Anthony "Jaco" Pastorius III (December 1, 1951 – September 21, 1987) was an American musician and songwriter widely acknowledged for his virtuosity of the fretless bass, as well as his command of varied musical styles and his many compositions.

His playing style was noteworthy for containing "dazzling solos in the higher register" and "fluid machine-gun-like passages that demanded attention," often featuring his instrument in lead rather than rhythm section. His unique innovations also included the use of harmonics and the "singing" quality of his melodies. In 2006, Pastorius was voted "The Greatest Bass Player Who Has Ever Lived" by reader submissions in Bass Guitar Magazine.

Apart from his career in the influential jazz fusion band Weather Report, he had two Grammy Award nominations for his self-titled debut album. He was inducted into Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988, one of only four bassists to be so honored beside Charles Mingus, Milt Hinton, and Ray Brown and the only electric bassist to garner the distinction. Later in life, Pastorius suffered from mental health problems and substance abuse, both of which contributed to his death.

Early history

John Francis Pastorius III was born December 1, 1951 in Norristown, Pennsylvania to John Francis Pastorius II and Stephanie Katherine Haapala Pastorius, the first of their three children. Consequently, Pastorius was of Finnish, German, Swedish, and Irish ancestry. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Fort Lauderdale. Pastorius went to elementary and middle school at St. Clement's Catholic School in Wilton Manors, and he was an altar boy at the adjoining church. In his years at St. Clement's, the art he was most known for was drawing.

File:Jaco Pastorius album.jpg

The album cover of Jaco Pastorius (1976), Pastorius' acclaimed debut album.

Inspired by the arrival of the Beatles in the United States in 1964, Pastorius formed his first band named The Sonics along with John Caputo and Dean Noel. He went to high school at Northeast High in Oakland Park. He was a talented athlete with skills in football, basketball, and baseball, and he picked up music at an early age. He took the name "Anthony" at his confirmation.

He loved basketball, and often watched basketball with his father, whose nickname was "Jack". Pastorius' nickname was influenced by his love of sports and also by the umpire Jocko Conlan. He changed the spelling from "Jocko" to "Jaco" after the pianist Alex Darqui sent him a note. Darqui, who was French, assumed the name was spelled "Jaco"; "Jaco" liked the new spelling.

Pastorius started his musical career as a drummer (following in the footsteps of his father, a stand-up drummer) but when he was 13, he injured his wrist while playing football. At that time he was in a nine-piece horn band called Las Olas Brass (which covered popular material of the day by Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, James Brown and the Tijuana Brass). Rendered unable to play the drums, he decided to fill in the spot left open by the recently departed bass player.

As Pastorius' interest in jazz grew, he developed a desire to play the double bass. After saving money for a considerable length of time for the purchase of a double bass, he found that the instrument could not stand up to the Florida humidity. One morning, his double bass was "in a million pieces on the floor" as he put it. Deciding that this would prove to be too expensive, he instead pried out the frets on his Fender, and filled the fret holes with wood putty.

Influences

Musical influences included James Jamerson, James Brown, The Beatles, Miles Davis, and Stravinsky. Other musical influences include: Jimi Hendrix, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Paul Hindemith, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, The Band, Santana, Frank Zappa, Bob Marley, Tommy Cogbill, Ray Charles, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Otis Redding, James T. Doggington, Cannonball Adderley and Jerry Jemmott. According to Bill Milkowski's biography "Jaco: The extraordinary and tragic life of Jaco Pastorius" he was also heavily influenced by Johann Sebastian Bach. His bass solo "Chromatic Fantasy" is taken from Bach's work.

Music career

Pastorius continued to play music throughout his youth, drawing on aforementioned influences like Jerry Jemmott, James Jamerson, Paul Chambers, Harvey Brooks and Tommy Cogbill and honing his skills and developing his songwriting prowess in bands like Wayne Cochran and The C.C. Riders. He also played on various local R&B and jazz records during that time such as Little Beaver, Ira Sullivan's Quintet and Woodchuck. In 1974, he began playing with his friend and later famous jazz guitarist Pat Metheny. They recorded together, first with Paul Bley as leader and Bruce Ditmas on drums, then with drummer Bob Moses. Metheny and Jaco recorded a trio album with Bob Moses on the ECM label entitled Bright Size Life.

The album cover of Heavy Weather (1977) by Weather Report. Considered a landmark album in the jazz-rock movement, it was the band's second album to feature Pastorius as bassist.

In 1975, Pastorius met up with Blood, Sweat and Tears drummer Bobby Colomby, who had been given the green light by CBS records to find "new talent" for their jazz division. Pastorius' first album, produced by Colomby and entitled Jaco Pastorius (1976), was a breakthrough album for the electric bass. Many consider this to be the finest bass album ever recorded; when it exploded onto the jazz scene it was instantly recognized as a classic. The album also boasted a lineup of heavyweights in the jazz community at the time, who were essentially his stellar back up band, including Herbie Hancock, David Sanborn, Lenny White, Don Alias, and Michael Brecker among others. Even legendary R&B singers Sam & Dave reunited to appear on the track "Come On, Come Over".

During this time, he had also run into keyboardist Josef Zawinul in Miami, Florida, where his band, Weather Report was playing. According to Zawinul, Pastorius walked up to him after a concert the previous night and talked about the performance and how it was "all right" but he had "expected more". He then went on to tell the great Zawinul that he was "The Greatest Bass Player in the World". An unamused Zawinul told him to "get the fuck outta my sight." The next day, Zawinul found Pastorius standing outside his hotel room, head bowed and hands folded in front of him. Zawinul was impressed enough to listen to Jaco's demo and was floored.

Also during this time period, Pastorius guested on many albums by other artists; (Joni Mitchell's Hejira album, and Al Di Meola's solo album are standouts, all released in 1976). Soon after that, Weather Report bass player Alphonso Johnson gave notice that he would be leaving to start his own band. Pastorius was happily invited by Zawinul to join the band where he played alongside Joe and Wayne Shorter until 1982. It is with Weather Report that Pastorius made his indelible mark on jazz music, being featured on one of the most popular jazz albums of all time, the Grammy-nominated Heavy Weather. Not only did this album showcase Jaco's stunning bass playing, but he also received a co-producing credit with Joe Zawinul and even plays drums on his self composed Teen Town.

As aforementioned, during the course of his musical career, Pastorius played on dozens of recording sessions for other musicians, both in and out of jazz circles. Some of his most notable are four highly regarded albums with acclaimed singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell: Hejira (1976), Don Juan's Reckless Daughter (1977), Mingus (1979) and the live album Shadows and Light (1980). His influence was most dominant on Hejira, and many of the songs on that album seem to be composed using the bass as a melodic source of inspiration.

Zawinul and Pastorius struck up a close friendship almost immediately, as both men were outgoing and energetic, full of life. But Zawinul was tempered with age; he was in his 40s, with a sense of life's limits, while Jaco was still in his early 20s. One night before a gig, Zawinul offered Jaco a drink to loosen up. Jaco had never drank before due to his father's own struggles with alcohol, but after two drinks, Zawinul said he got "strange. He started throwing things. I knew right away I had made a mistake." Pastorius's drinking grew more out of control in the ensuing years, with Zawinul so furious during a Japanese tour in 1980 he was ready to fire Jaco, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

By the time he and Weather Report parted ways in early 1981 (to Zawinul's relief), Jaco began pursuing his interest in creating a Big Band solo project, one that found its debut aurally on his second solo release, which was distributed by Warner Brothers, Word of Mouth (which was also the name of the Big Band). Like his 1976 debut, Word of Mouth also boasted guest appearances by several distinguished jazz musicians; Herbie Hancock appears again here, as do Weather Report alumni Wayne Shorter and Peter Erskine, and other legends such as harmonica virtuoso Toots Thielemans and Hubert Laws.

The songwriting on Word of Mouth overshadowed his bass playing to a degree and really opened the eyes of a lot of people who thought that his prowess was confined to the electric bass. His production and ability to bring together a project that was recorded on both coasts of the United States was stunning indeed.

He toured in 1982; a swing through Japan was the highlight, and it was at this time that bizarre tales of Jaco's deteriorating behavior first surfaced. He shaved his head, painted his face black and threw his bass into Hiroshima Bay at one point. That tour was released in Japan as Twins I and Twins II and was condensed for an American release which was known as Invitation.

His increasingly erratic behavior began to affect his musical career (see below), and he was eventually dropped by Warner Brothers. He had to be pulled off stage during the 1982 Playboy Jazz Festival due to drunkenness, prompting an apology to the crowd by MC Bill Cosby. By 1984, the Word of Mouth Big Band had also splintered. He managed to record a third solo album, which made it as far as some unpolished demo tapes, a steel pans tinged release entitled Holiday for Pans, which once again showcased him as more of a tunesmith and producer than a bass player. In fact, Jaco did not play any of the bass parts on the album. Some years after his death, bass player Kenny Burrell Jr. confessed to playing the bass parts, though most all knew this due to Burrell's inferior capabilities as a bass player. Jaco could not find a distributor for the album and the album was never released, however it was widely bootlegged since. In 2003, a cut from Holiday for Pans, entitled "Good Morning Anya", was included on Rhino Records' anthology Punk Jazz.

Near the end of his career, he guested on low-key releases by jazz artists such as guitarist Mike Stern, gypsy guitarist Biréli Lagrène, and drummer Brian Melvin. In 1986, he recorded an instructional video, Modern Electric Bass, hosted by bass legend Jerry Jemmott. Jaco by this point had been in the throes of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse and had been homeless for a stretch. He's shaky and his playing is uneven and he admits he can't play some of his old licks. The video is not structured and tends to jump around from one subject to the next. It finishes with an impromptu jam sessions with Jaco, guitarist John Scofield and drummer Kenwood Dennard.

Instruments and technique

Pastorius was most identified by his use of two well-worn Fender Jazz Basses from the early 1960s: A 1960 Fretted, and a 1962 Fretless. The fretless was originally a fretted bass (as fretless versions were not yet being manufactured by Fender at the time) from which he removed the frets and used wood filler to fill in the grooves where the frets had been, along with the holes created where chunks of the fretboard had been taken out. Jaco then sanded down the fingerboard, and applied several coats of marine epoxy (Petit's Poly-poxy) to prevent the rough Rotosound RS-66 roundwound bass strings he used from eating into the bare wood. Even though he played both the fretted and the fretless basses frequently, he preferred the fretless, because he felt frets were a hindrance, once calling them "speed bumps."

The "Jaco growl" is obtained by using the bridge pickup exclusively and plucking the strings close to it. Additionally, Jaco used the "Variamp" EQ (equalization) controls on his two Acoustic 361 amplifiers (made by the Acoustic Control Corporation of Van Nuys, California) to boost the midrange frequencies, thus accentuating the natural growling tone of his fretless passive Fender Jazz Bass and roundwound string combination. His tone was also colored by the use of a rackmount MXR digital delay unit that fed a second Acoustic amp rig. He often used Hartke cabinets because of their characteristic aluminium speaker cones (as opposed to paper speaker cones). These gave his tone a bright, clean clarity. Jaco typically used the delay in a chorus-like mode, providing a stereo doubling effect. He would often use the fuzz control built in on the Acoustic 361. Another effect he used live was an octave pedal (which provides a 2nd tone an octave lower). For the bass solo "Slang" on the 8:30 album, Jaco used the MXR digital delay to layer and loop a chordal figure and soloed over it.

Pastorius used natural and artificial/false harmonics to extend the range of the bass (exemplified in the bass solo masterpiece Portrait of Tracy from his eponymous album) and could achieve a horn-like tone through his playing technique. Both of his Fender basses were stolen shortly before he entered Bellevue hospital in 1986. In 1993, one of the basses resurfaced in a New York City music shop, with the distinctive letter P written between the two pickups. The store told Bass Player magazine it was brought in by a "student" of Jaco's, and the asking price was $35,000.

Jaco also had two Jaydee Basses made for him shortly before he died; a fretted and a fretless.

Health problems and death

In the early to mid-1980s, Pastorius began to experience increasingly prevalent mental health problems, including symptoms of bipolar disorder. These were worsened by heavy drug and alcohol use and he was eventually diagnosed as being manic depressive. Although his on-stage and off-stage antics were already well-documented, his mental health and addiction problems exacerbated his unusual and often bizarre behavior and his musical performances suffered.

During this time he played in various solo acts in Fort Lauderdale and New York City, and became an outcast of the musical community due to his health problems. His final address was at Holiday Park in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. After sneaking onstage at a Carlos Santana concert September 11, 1987, he was ejected from the premises, and he made his way to the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida. What then happened was clouded with discrepancy. After reportedly kicking in a glass door after being refused entrance to the club, he was engaged in a violent confrontation with the club bouncer, Luc Havan, who was trained in martial arts. Pastorius was hospitalized for multiple facial fractures and gruesome disfigurement to his face, including the probable loss of his right eye and sustained irreversible brain damage. He fell into a coma and was put on life support. His condition worsened and increasing signs pointed to brain death and so his family decided to remove him from life support. Pastorius died on September 21 1987, aged 35, at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale.

In the wake of Pastorius' death, Havan was convicted of second degree murder, for which he served 4 months.

Jaco is buried at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale.

Trivia

• Miles Davis honored the late bassist on his album Amandla with the Marcus Miller composition "Mr. Pastorius," as Jaco was an inspiration to Marcus Miller.
• Victor Wooten also honored Jaco on his album Soul Circus on the track "Bass Tribute", thanking Pastorius several times. He also does a solo titled 'Glorius Pastorius,' and does a tribute to Jaco's interpretation of Charlie Parker's 'Donna Lee' in his 'Bass Extremes' with Steve Bailey.
• Pat Metheny Group also honored Jaco on their album Pat Metheny Group on the track "Jaco", with whom Metheny had previously played.
• John McLaughlin also honored Jaco on his album Industrial Zen with the song "For Jaco".
• English keyboard player Rod Argent includes a track titled "Pastorius Mentioned" on his 1979 Album "Moving Home"
• Canadian bassist Alain Caron pays tribute to Pastorius by playing an upright bass version of "Donna Lee" on Uzeb's "World Tour '90" album, and has mentioned that Pastorius was his biggest inspiration when it comes to playing fretless bass.
• Geddy Lee of the Canadian rock trio Rush used a special edition Jaco Pastorius fretless bass on the recording of the instrumental Malignant Narcissism from their latest album Snakes and Arrows.

Discography

	Solo	Weather Report	Collaboration
			Album	Artist
1974			Jaco	Pat Metheny, Ditmas, Bley
1975			Bright Size Life	Pat Metheny
1976	Jaco Pastorius	Black Market	All-American Alien Boy Hejira	Ian Hunter Joni Mitchell
1977		Heavy Weather	Don Juan's Reckless Daughter Trilogue - Live at the Berlin Jazz Days	Joni Mitchell Albert Mangelsdorff, Alphonse Mouzon
1978		Mr. Gone	Everyday, Everynight	Flora Purim
1979		8:30	Mingus Shadows and Light (live album) Michel Colombier Trio of Doom (2007 release - live and studio)	Joni Mitchell Joni Mitchell Michel Colombier John McLaughlin, Tony Williams
1980		Night Passage	Mr.Hands	Herbie Hancock
1981	Word of Mouth
1982	Holiday for Pans The Birthday Concert	Weather Report
1983	Invitation Twins I & II
1984			Last Flight	Essence
1985			Down By Law	Deadline
1986	Broadway Blues & Teresa Golden Roads Heavy & Jazz PDB		Nightfood Stuttgart Aria Upside Downside The Standards Zone Jazz Street (Japanese market)	Brian Melvin Biréli Lagrène Mike Stern The Brian Melvin Trio Brian Melvin

References

• Milkowski, Bill (1995). Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius, "The World's Greatest Bass Player". Backbeat Books. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)

External links

• Official web site
• Jaco Pastorius discography at MusicBrainz
• Jaco Family site
• Great Bass: The Extraordinary Jaco Pastorius – Panel Discussion with Linda Yohn, Bob Bobbing, Peter Graves, Will Lee, Howard Mandel, Ralph Armstrong, Bill Milkowski