So, while we are submitting our Jaco tales, I must offer this little ditty. Jaco and I went to high school together and sat behind one another in Spanish class. Aside from learning the minimal amount of Spanish to graduate, we would pass handwritten drawings back and forth to one another of drum sets and other musical things. (Before he broke his wrist and switched to bass, he was a drummer – this was in 1967). He loved R&B music and listened all the time to Rockin’ Big Daddy radio (WRBD AM-1470). These were his roots as most everyone knows. In class one day, he passed a drawing he made of the Rockin’ Big Daddy Sax-playing Gator logo for the station. It was drawn on a piece of paper approximately 3” square and done in colored pencils. I thought it was pretty cool, so I folded it up and put it in my wallet. We kept in touch for the next few years and would see each other from time to time playing in local bands in Ft. Lauderdale and Miami.
Meanwhile, I still had the Rockin’ Big Daddy drawing folded up in my wallet. Why? I don’t know but it was just a keepsake that I dug. I kept forgetting to show it to him when we ran into each other.
In 1972, prior to his gig with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders, he recruited me to join the Tommy Strand and the Upper Hand soul band. Tommy was set to open for Wayne’s band later in the year and Jaco wanted a chance for Wayne to see him play in hopes of getting the gig. Jaco always wanted me to provide a basic 2 & 4 backbeat which would allow him to demonstrate his other-worldly playing. After he got that gig, we continued to stay in touch during his solo debut album, then the Weather Report Heavy Weather record. By chance one day in 1978 I ran into him in the parking lot of The Musicians Exchange in Ft. Lauderdale. Big hugs and laughs and then I said “Man, I’ve got to show you something.” I pulled the Rockin’ Big Daddy drawing out of my wallet and he flipped out. He couldn’t believe I saved this drawing for 11 years. He asked if he could have it and of course, I gave it to him.
The next time I saw him was in 1981 at his second album’s release party (Word of Mouth). He had graciously invited all his South Florida musician friends to his house in Deerfield Beach, Florida to celebrate. He had a grand piano in his living room and as I waltzed over to it, what do I see laminated into the paint on the wall next to the piano? The Rockin’ Big Daddy drawing which still had the fold marks from being in my wallet. Yes, my turn to flip out!
Yes, especially when he was about 18-19. We all knew he was a unique talent when, after breaking his wrist, he took up the bass and within days was hired by a horn band that played soul/R&B tunes. By the time joined Tommy Strands band he was by far the best bass player in South Florida. He was only 21. You can hear him play with Tommy on one of his anthology CD’s. Check out “I Want to Take You Higher” (the Sly Stone tune). His solo brings tears it’s so good.
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.
It's 1976 and i'm in my first year at Berklee Coll. of Music in Boston and its January and its cold. One of my teachers mentions this bass player from Florida who is in town and we should go see him and I still have my notebook where I wrote it down phonetically:"Jocko Pasteurized?" He is doing a three nighter at Ryles in Cambridge with Pat Metheny and Bob Moses,the first night is tonight and its snowing. This is right after Bright Size Life was recorded but before its release in March. I trudge through the snow and get to Ryles about 15 minutes before downbeat and I see Pat and Bob with his vistalite set where every drum is a different color but no "Jocko". The club is smallish and maybe half filled at this point. We wait about 45 minutes when boom in walks Jaco with his bass hanging off him like he was playing it as he was walking to the club,there is no case to be seen,its snowing outside. He plugs in and off they go. A mix of tunes from the new album and Jimi Hendrix covers. Another seminal moment. My very first concert 3 years before was the Mahavishnu Orchestra right after Inner Mounting Flame but just before Birds of Fire followed by the first of many Stevie Wonder concerts in my life. That first Jaco performance was Jaco the bass player,Bright Size Life was all Pat tunes so no hint at Jaco the composer. Within a year that all changed with Weather Report. When his decline started becoming apparent I wondered where was the music community taking care of its own,all the stories sounded like he was on his own and all the responses were reactive. What should be done when a national treasure falls into mental decline? Is the cautionary tale his sickness or our reaction to it? It's still a question I have.
This story breaks my heart. I lived in Manhattan throughout the 80s. One afternoon, as I was walking by a then well known music club, the name of which now escapes me (it was not a jazz club), when a shirtless, barefoot man fled from it as a very strong-looking angry man yelled from the doorway that if he (the fleeing figure) ever came back, "I'll kick your effing ass!" The fleeing man ran towards me and huddled down to hide behind a bunch of parked cars on the cross street. The look of abject fear and sorrow on his face seared into my consciousness, and that's when I recognized that it was Jaco. Before I could say or do anything, he leaped from his crouch and ran away. He died the following year.
i saw him at a club in 82, or 83 in manhattan... mike stern was playing on the gig, and jaco was just listening in... i don't know jacos drug dependency thingy, but i know mike stern was a junkie for a time.. i haven't been to manhattan since 91, but i guess the jazz tourism thingy is keeping it alive in the small clubs.. smalls seems to be going strong.. maybe their is a book on jaco that would go into these kinds of details..
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.
a bassie friend of mine, steve hemmens, saw the weather report gig in Brighton - in England. He said the stage was in total darkness and this drumming started on the kit. Everyone naturally assumed it was peter erskine cos the groove was terrific. gradually the lights came up to reveal jaco on the kit. Eerskine came in behind him, reached round and took the sticks - and just carried on without a pause, jaco walked across, picked up his bass and the gig kicked right off. I only wish I’d been there myself.
He also loved Charlie Parker. His bass guitar solo on the live version of "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" from Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light album is a horn solo played on electric bass.
Jaco didn't seem stoned or strung out or inebriated at either Barry Harris's or in the subway. There was NOTHING Sad about him in the club. He was lively and in control.
He hung out at the basketball courts. They don't wear shirts 1/2 the time. He was seriously strumming that Ukulele away from people. Not trying to busk for a few cents.
Our conversation was lucid. He told me where to find him and when he was there. He remembered the conversation in the club. He knew he was a great bass player.
I don't know what he did with the money. Even in 1987, 5 bucks wasn't gonna buy much of anything other than a nickel bag in the park if he did that. And maybe, just maybe, he went someplace to order an egg sandwich.
He obviously got money a couple of months later to get to Florida. By all accounts, other professional bases, he was a highly intelligent and generous person with all the information he'd give others. The vibe I got from him wasn't of a bowery bum.
The Hang refers to the encounters that live jazz music offered after hours in the clubs. Meet and hang with the masters, guys like Mike Stern at a little bar on the west side, all the musicians with a dream at Blue Note and Barry Harris's. Jimmy Heath showing us how to voice chords up at jazz mobile and stories about Trane. Just tons of stories. There were always cats who were sick or down on their luck that were innovators in this music. Others in the community did help.
Great take…that was the ying and yang of Jaco. Had dinner with him in LA a lifetime ago. He was coherent and holding court. My prodigy girlfriend at the time asked him how we was on stringed instruments, meaning “other” stringed instruments. She spoke music fluently but verbal communication wasn’t her strength. Jaco said, “stringed instruments? I’m the best fxckin’ bass player in the world.” Every double scale player I worked with agreed, although Quincy Jones always said Ray Brown could make a mule swing. It was, and continues to be, about the hang.
These aren't stories about some kind of wild living musician. Jaco was an untreated bipolar who self-medicated with booze and illegal drugs. If you see any video or pictures of him in his last years, it's the face of a man who is lost to the world. These are stories of a man falling apart, a story that ends in tragedy and unbearable loss for his family and the loss of an incredible talent to the music world.
I knew Jaco quite well having met him just after he joined Weather Report. I spent the day after the show here showing him around Austin. Two years later he and Zawinul invited me along on part of a Weather Report tour in Europe. In all of our interactions over the years he showed me incredible kindness. I lost track of him during the NY years. His slide downward ending in death were tragic and heartbreaking. I agree totally that this was not just from drug and alcohol use though that may have sped it up. I believe there may have been some neurological issues but I'm sure I will never know. I am sure that he brought great brightness and opportunities into my life through his kindness I would have never had if the band I managed at the time I met him had not brought Weather Report over to my house after the concert and Jaco hadn't asked me to show him around Austin. Rather than RIP, I hope he is playing in the band of his choosing if he has not reincarnated.
Thanks for sharing- not the first time Jaco's come up. In the late 80's a friend- a bass player- insisted I listen to a particular solo album. In short order it was easy to see why he was freaking out over Pastorius- his work with Joni Mitchell is outstanding. Tragic that such an immense talent was overshadowed by even larger personal issues.
I hope to be a griping Boomer, but I just can't believe how cheap concerts used to be and how varied the lineups. For example, at the L.A. Colisseum (probably 1976): Rory Gallagher, Robin Trower, Jethro Tull. Saw then newly formed Mahavishnu Orchestra ("Inner Mounting Flame" had just come out) opening for E.L.P.; my friends and I left school after lunch, drove down to Santa Monica Civic box office, bought tickets, and voila...At The Roxy, the then new Pat Metheny group opening for pianist Bill Evans Trio (again, mid-70s). In 10th grade, I saw Pink Floyd at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday, Sept 22, 1972; I actually wrote and mailed an order to the Bowl box office, got tickets back in the mail: last row box seats for $10 a pop! This was months before "Dark Side" came out; they played all of it in quadrophonic, didn't say a word about about it to the audience, took an intermission, then came back with "Echoes," etc. Now a family goes into debt to see Taylor Swift.
I went to the Fillmore in the late sixties for what? $3? Santana, Albert King, Elton John, Rod Stewart and the Faces for $3? I couldn't have afforded more, actually.
The great Jaco... I saw him with Weather Report several times on big stages and small. For some reason I associate him with EA Poe because of their outdoor sad mysterious deaths..
I loved Jaco since I bought his first solo lp before Black Market came out. Freaking guy was so unusual and beasty back then .. unicorn .. alien... I must say however that sometimes, at least for me, he overplayed those harmonics and effects... Anyway, good story by the reader. Shredding on upright!!!
MUCH better story than mine about about both of us staying in the Orlando Omni for 5 days during SRV's final year (as he waited for his Bob Carr Center performance late in the week), and running into him constantly.
I’m familiar with that corner and subway station - I use them to visit my daughter. Next time I am in town to see her and my granddaughter I will pause a moment at that spot to say “thanks for the intro to Teen Town” and hope he has found peace.
Perhaps eccentric, but for me Jaco at his most transcendentally lyrical was his work with Joni Mitchell on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. So sweet. And he did have company with Mingus, Charlie Haden, and Ron Carter (especially on Picollo). Carter could sing.
the biography of jaco by bill milkowski is one of the best - and towards the end one of the saddest music biographies I have ever read…absolutely necessary reading for any serious jazz fan...
For me the definition of tragedy. Incredible greatness with fatal flaws. So many great artists with talent and ego are often with demons that sadly compromise them. Perhaps those flaws are what spur the originality and creativity. Sad it seems to be that way.
So, while we are submitting our Jaco tales, I must offer this little ditty. Jaco and I went to high school together and sat behind one another in Spanish class. Aside from learning the minimal amount of Spanish to graduate, we would pass handwritten drawings back and forth to one another of drum sets and other musical things. (Before he broke his wrist and switched to bass, he was a drummer – this was in 1967). He loved R&B music and listened all the time to Rockin’ Big Daddy radio (WRBD AM-1470). These were his roots as most everyone knows. In class one day, he passed a drawing he made of the Rockin’ Big Daddy Sax-playing Gator logo for the station. It was drawn on a piece of paper approximately 3” square and done in colored pencils. I thought it was pretty cool, so I folded it up and put it in my wallet. We kept in touch for the next few years and would see each other from time to time playing in local bands in Ft. Lauderdale and Miami.
Meanwhile, I still had the Rockin’ Big Daddy drawing folded up in my wallet. Why? I don’t know but it was just a keepsake that I dug. I kept forgetting to show it to him when we ran into each other.
In 1972, prior to his gig with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders, he recruited me to join the Tommy Strand and the Upper Hand soul band. Tommy was set to open for Wayne’s band later in the year and Jaco wanted a chance for Wayne to see him play in hopes of getting the gig. Jaco always wanted me to provide a basic 2 & 4 backbeat which would allow him to demonstrate his other-worldly playing. After he got that gig, we continued to stay in touch during his solo debut album, then the Weather Report Heavy Weather record. By chance one day in 1978 I ran into him in the parking lot of The Musicians Exchange in Ft. Lauderdale. Big hugs and laughs and then I said “Man, I’ve got to show you something.” I pulled the Rockin’ Big Daddy drawing out of my wallet and he flipped out. He couldn’t believe I saved this drawing for 11 years. He asked if he could have it and of course, I gave it to him.
The next time I saw him was in 1981 at his second album’s release party (Word of Mouth). He had graciously invited all his South Florida musician friends to his house in Deerfield Beach, Florida to celebrate. He had a grand piano in his living room and as I waltzed over to it, what do I see laminated into the paint on the wall next to the piano? The Rockin’ Big Daddy drawing which still had the fold marks from being in my wallet. Yes, my turn to flip out!
That's a beautiful story. Thank you.
And of the drums, God said:
Wrong choice, Jaco. I sent you to play bass.
Exactly!
Thanks Ted. Your column is fantastic.
Genius!! Thanks for sharing!
Did you know how good he was back then?
Yes, especially when he was about 18-19. We all knew he was a unique talent when, after breaking his wrist, he took up the bass and within days was hired by a horn band that played soul/R&B tunes. By the time joined Tommy Strands band he was by far the best bass player in South Florida. He was only 21. You can hear him play with Tommy on one of his anthology CD’s. Check out “I Want to Take You Higher” (the Sly Stone tune). His solo brings tears it’s so good.
http://www.jacop.net/alligator.html
Here’s a photo of what was in my wallet for 11 years
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.
Was the bouncer prosecuted?
https://pastexplore.wordpress.com/2013/06/04/some-additional-thoughts-on-the-death-of-jaco-pastorius/
if you believe in gahd, Jaco is jamming with Scott la Faro on a cloud. jaco on electtic harp.
2 bass hit
It's 1976 and i'm in my first year at Berklee Coll. of Music in Boston and its January and its cold. One of my teachers mentions this bass player from Florida who is in town and we should go see him and I still have my notebook where I wrote it down phonetically:"Jocko Pasteurized?" He is doing a three nighter at Ryles in Cambridge with Pat Metheny and Bob Moses,the first night is tonight and its snowing. This is right after Bright Size Life was recorded but before its release in March. I trudge through the snow and get to Ryles about 15 minutes before downbeat and I see Pat and Bob with his vistalite set where every drum is a different color but no "Jocko". The club is smallish and maybe half filled at this point. We wait about 45 minutes when boom in walks Jaco with his bass hanging off him like he was playing it as he was walking to the club,there is no case to be seen,its snowing outside. He plugs in and off they go. A mix of tunes from the new album and Jimi Hendrix covers. Another seminal moment. My very first concert 3 years before was the Mahavishnu Orchestra right after Inner Mounting Flame but just before Birds of Fire followed by the first of many Stevie Wonder concerts in my life. That first Jaco performance was Jaco the bass player,Bright Size Life was all Pat tunes so no hint at Jaco the composer. Within a year that all changed with Weather Report. When his decline started becoming apparent I wondered where was the music community taking care of its own,all the stories sounded like he was on his own and all the responses were reactive. What should be done when a national treasure falls into mental decline? Is the cautionary tale his sickness or our reaction to it? It's still a question I have.
This story breaks my heart. I lived in Manhattan throughout the 80s. One afternoon, as I was walking by a then well known music club, the name of which now escapes me (it was not a jazz club), when a shirtless, barefoot man fled from it as a very strong-looking angry man yelled from the doorway that if he (the fleeing figure) ever came back, "I'll kick your effing ass!" The fleeing man ran towards me and huddled down to hide behind a bunch of parked cars on the cross street. The look of abject fear and sorrow on his face seared into my consciousness, and that's when I recognized that it was Jaco. Before I could say or do anything, he leaped from his crouch and ran away. He died the following year.
i saw him at a club in 82, or 83 in manhattan... mike stern was playing on the gig, and jaco was just listening in... i don't know jacos drug dependency thingy, but i know mike stern was a junkie for a time.. i haven't been to manhattan since 91, but i guess the jazz tourism thingy is keeping it alive in the small clubs.. smalls seems to be going strong.. maybe their is a book on jaco that would go into these kinds of details..
Some of Jaco’s finest playing is on Mike Stern - Mood Swings. Be sure not to sleep on that cut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0dfxtzjhU
The Wiki on him is pretty thorough.
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.
And to think he'd started off on drums.
He played great drums! You can hear him play on the studio recording of Teen Town.
a bassie friend of mine, steve hemmens, saw the weather report gig in Brighton - in England. He said the stage was in total darkness and this drumming started on the kit. Everyone naturally assumed it was peter erskine cos the groove was terrific. gradually the lights came up to reveal jaco on the kit. Eerskine came in behind him, reached round and took the sticks - and just carried on without a pause, jaco walked across, picked up his bass and the gig kicked right off. I only wish I’d been there myself.
He also loved Charlie Parker. His bass guitar solo on the live version of "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" from Joni Mitchell's Shadows and Light album is a horn solo played on electric bass.
Addendum based on some of the comments:
Jaco didn't seem stoned or strung out or inebriated at either Barry Harris's or in the subway. There was NOTHING Sad about him in the club. He was lively and in control.
He hung out at the basketball courts. They don't wear shirts 1/2 the time. He was seriously strumming that Ukulele away from people. Not trying to busk for a few cents.
Our conversation was lucid. He told me where to find him and when he was there. He remembered the conversation in the club. He knew he was a great bass player.
I don't know what he did with the money. Even in 1987, 5 bucks wasn't gonna buy much of anything other than a nickel bag in the park if he did that. And maybe, just maybe, he went someplace to order an egg sandwich.
He obviously got money a couple of months later to get to Florida. By all accounts, other professional bases, he was a highly intelligent and generous person with all the information he'd give others. The vibe I got from him wasn't of a bowery bum.
The Hang refers to the encounters that live jazz music offered after hours in the clubs. Meet and hang with the masters, guys like Mike Stern at a little bar on the west side, all the musicians with a dream at Blue Note and Barry Harris's. Jimmy Heath showing us how to voice chords up at jazz mobile and stories about Trane. Just tons of stories. There were always cats who were sick or down on their luck that were innovators in this music. Others in the community did help.
Great take…that was the ying and yang of Jaco. Had dinner with him in LA a lifetime ago. He was coherent and holding court. My prodigy girlfriend at the time asked him how we was on stringed instruments, meaning “other” stringed instruments. She spoke music fluently but verbal communication wasn’t her strength. Jaco said, “stringed instruments? I’m the best fxckin’ bass player in the world.” Every double scale player I worked with agreed, although Quincy Jones always said Ray Brown could make a mule swing. It was, and continues to be, about the hang.
These aren't stories about some kind of wild living musician. Jaco was an untreated bipolar who self-medicated with booze and illegal drugs. If you see any video or pictures of him in his last years, it's the face of a man who is lost to the world. These are stories of a man falling apart, a story that ends in tragedy and unbearable loss for his family and the loss of an incredible talent to the music world.
I knew Jaco quite well having met him just after he joined Weather Report. I spent the day after the show here showing him around Austin. Two years later he and Zawinul invited me along on part of a Weather Report tour in Europe. In all of our interactions over the years he showed me incredible kindness. I lost track of him during the NY years. His slide downward ending in death were tragic and heartbreaking. I agree totally that this was not just from drug and alcohol use though that may have sped it up. I believe there may have been some neurological issues but I'm sure I will never know. I am sure that he brought great brightness and opportunities into my life through his kindness I would have never had if the band I managed at the time I met him had not brought Weather Report over to my house after the concert and Jaco hadn't asked me to show him around Austin. Rather than RIP, I hope he is playing in the band of his choosing if he has not reincarnated.
Thanks for sharing this. Losing him was such a tragedy.
Thanks for sharing- not the first time Jaco's come up. In the late 80's a friend- a bass player- insisted I listen to a particular solo album. In short order it was easy to see why he was freaking out over Pastorius- his work with Joni Mitchell is outstanding. Tragic that such an immense talent was overshadowed by even larger personal issues.
I hope to be a griping Boomer, but I just can't believe how cheap concerts used to be and how varied the lineups. For example, at the L.A. Colisseum (probably 1976): Rory Gallagher, Robin Trower, Jethro Tull. Saw then newly formed Mahavishnu Orchestra ("Inner Mounting Flame" had just come out) opening for E.L.P.; my friends and I left school after lunch, drove down to Santa Monica Civic box office, bought tickets, and voila...At The Roxy, the then new Pat Metheny group opening for pianist Bill Evans Trio (again, mid-70s). In 10th grade, I saw Pink Floyd at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday, Sept 22, 1972; I actually wrote and mailed an order to the Bowl box office, got tickets back in the mail: last row box seats for $10 a pop! This was months before "Dark Side" came out; they played all of it in quadrophonic, didn't say a word about about it to the audience, took an intermission, then came back with "Echoes," etc. Now a family goes into debt to see Taylor Swift.
I went to the Fillmore in the late sixties for what? $3? Santana, Albert King, Elton John, Rod Stewart and the Faces for $3? I couldn't have afforded more, actually.
The great Jaco... I saw him with Weather Report several times on big stages and small. For some reason I associate him with EA Poe because of their outdoor sad mysterious deaths..
I loved Jaco since I bought his first solo lp before Black Market came out. Freaking guy was so unusual and beasty back then .. unicorn .. alien... I must say however that sometimes, at least for me, he overplayed those harmonics and effects... Anyway, good story by the reader. Shredding on upright!!!
MUCH better story than mine about about both of us staying in the Orlando Omni for 5 days during SRV's final year (as he waited for his Bob Carr Center performance late in the week), and running into him constantly.
You tell a very sad, but great story...
I’m familiar with that corner and subway station - I use them to visit my daughter. Next time I am in town to see her and my granddaughter I will pause a moment at that spot to say “thanks for the intro to Teen Town” and hope he has found peace.
Perhaps eccentric, but for me Jaco at his most transcendentally lyrical was his work with Joni Mitchell on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. So sweet. And he did have company with Mingus, Charlie Haden, and Ron Carter (especially on Picollo). Carter could sing.
the biography of jaco by bill milkowski is one of the best - and towards the end one of the saddest music biographies I have ever read…absolutely necessary reading for any serious jazz fan...
For me the definition of tragedy. Incredible greatness with fatal flaws. So many great artists with talent and ego are often with demons that sadly compromise them. Perhaps those flaws are what spur the originality and creativity. Sad it seems to be that way.