A Reader Shares a Wild Story about Jaco Pastorius
From the comments section to yesterday's article on live music
Some years ago, I sat down for a meal with a well-known jazz musician who was drunk as a skunk. But he wanted to talk, and insisted that I listen to his story.
His story was about a crazy night on the town with bassist Jaco Pastorius (1951-1987). The evening began with the unexpected arrival of Jaco in a limousine, and continued into the wee hours.
My intoxicated companion kept talking and talking and talking. So much happened in those few hours that you could turn it into a movie—sort of a cross between Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Lost Weekend.
I regret that I never wrote it down. But I later met other people with their own wild Jaco stories. As famous as Pastorius was as a musician, he was almost as renowned for his heedless, all-too-short life.
A reader named David told the story of his personal encounter with Jaco in the comments section to yesterday’s article on “The Glorious Future of Live Music.” It’s a remarkable tale, both inspiring and sorrowful. I want to share it with the rest of you.
Read on…
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David’s Encounter with Jaco Pastorius
August 1987. A hot summer’s day in NYC. After a long day, we stayed up till 3 AM to go to Barry Harris Jazz Workshop on 8th Avenue. Down from the Garden. Old, dingy club, no bar. Old wooden tables. I’m still in college checking out the jazz scene with an older friend who played sax and just left the army.
He goes over to speak with some guy. Didn’t really pay attention until he came back and asked me if I knew who he was speaking with. I said “no.” He says: “That’s Jaco Pastorius.” My ears perked up, but only a little bit. I had a couple of Weather Report cassettes but that wasn’t my music back then.
This lanky white guy gets on the stand. Everybody is just fiddling around with their instruments. Jaco turns to the piano player and asks “Can you play ‘America’?” Japanese guy waves him off like get out of here. Stop messing around. Then he yells back to the piano player in a sarcastic tone and says, “Well do you know how to play ‘Satin Doll?’” in a very sarcastic tone—like do you know how to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb?”
He counts it off and the jam session begins. Jaco is playing upright bass. Rhythm section and a trumpet player and a sax player. I’m thinking just another bass player with a name. I’d been in class with Ron Carter for a semester.
They started to play and all of a sudden I heard a bass player like I never heard a bass player. All the other players disappeared, and I was totally entranced by Jaco’s playing and mannerisms. He was an eccentric dude. Made strange faces when he played, but it was if every note floated off that bass into the air and the bass player was the star of the band. A bass player is usually the solo that puts everyone to sleep. The notes floated into the air and it was almost as if I could see each note as well as feel it.
An upright bass player never did that to me. I was transported to another world. Suffice to say, I became a Jaco fan on the spot. WTF did I just witness? Some lanky, eccentric dude first messing around playing “America” and then owning “Satin Doll” like it had been written in the future.
One week later, I was in the Greenwich Village subway station, near the basketball courts, next to the Blue Note. And I see this shirtless, barefoot guy at the end of the station playing with a ukulele. I walk closer to get a better look and I’m like “damn, that’s the worlds greatest bass player hanging in the subway without a shirt or shoes.” So I go up to him, introduce myself, tell him I heard him last week at the session and that he had promised to help my friend get a gig. He’s like “Oh yeah. Do you have 5 bucks so I can get some breakfast?”
I’m like “alright man, but I don’t think this is for breakfast.” Imagine the bass player that changed the instrument forever, penniless and barefoot in the subways asking for 5 bucks?
Guy was a genius. Put me in an altered state in a New York minute. Those were the kind of encounters one could have in New York City when there was a live jazz scene and the masters were still alive. Live music wasn’t just about the music. It was also about the hang.
And, of course, the greatest bass player in the world winds up beaten to death by a bouncer outside a club where he used to play. Just heartbreaking shit. But god, did his notes sing to Heaven.
Interesting that his upright playing had this effect on the listener as well, since he is primarily known for his electric bass playing, which was transcendent. He had a musical voice that was as clear as day. It came through in his accompaniment, his soloing, his compositions. He was truly special. I wish I could have watched him perform live.