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Jaco Pastorius

A Pennsylvania-born, Florida-raised electric bassist who played a fretless 1962 Fender Jazz Bass, made his Epic debut in 1976, joined Weather Report for Heavy Weather and led the Word of Mouth big band.

Origin
Norristown, Pennsylvania; raised in Oakland Park, Florida
Years active
1966-1987
Genres
jazz fusion, post-bop, funk
Labels
Epic, Warner Bros., Columbia, ECM
Also known as
John Francis Anthony Pastorius III, Jocko

Florida

John Francis Anthony Pastorius III was born on December 1, 1951 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, and moved with his family around 1959 to Oakland Park, near Fort Lauderdale. His childhood nickname Jocko became Jaco in the early 1970s. He played drums until a football injury to his wrist at 13, bought an upright bass at 17 that cracked in the Florida humidity, and traded it for a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass, whose frets he removed, the instrument known as the Bass of Doom. In 1966, still in high school, he joined the soul cover band Las Olas Brass. In 1968 he recorded a multi-instrument piece called "The Chicken" and sent it to Alice Coltrane, who replied encouragingly, and in 1972 he spent about five months on tour with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders, where he learned to read music.

In the early 1970s he taught at the University of Miami, where he met the guitarist Pat Metheny. On June 16, 1974 he recorded Jaco with Metheny, Paul Bley and Bruce Ditmas at 29 Greene Street in New York, released in 1976 on Improvising Artists. In September 1975 he signed with Epic, after the executive Bobby Colomby, who met Tracy Pastorius on a Fort Lauderdale beach and heard from her that Jaco was the best bass player in the world, went to see him play.

Jaco Pastorius and Weather Report

Jaco Pastorius was recorded in October 1975 at Camp Colomby Studios and Columbia Recording Studios in New York, produced by Colomby, and released in 1976 on Epic. It has Herbie Hancock on piano, Rhodes and clavinet, Don Alias on percussion, Lenny White on drums, Sam and Dave singing on "Come On, Come Over", horns including Randy and Michael Brecker and David Sanborn, Wayne Shorter on soprano saxophone on "Opus Pocus" and Michael Gibbs's string arrangements. AllMusic's Rick Anderson gave it five stars. It earned two Grammy nominations in 1977.

He played on Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life (ECM, 1976), Weather Report's Black Market (1976) and Joni Mitchell's Hejira, and with Weather Report on Heavy Weather (March 1977, Columbia), which he co-produced, reached number 30 on the Billboard 200 and number one on the jazz albums chart, and was certified platinum. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2011. He also appeared with Weather Report on Mr. Gone (1978), the live 8:30 (1979) and Night Passage (1980), and with Mitchell on Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mingus and Shadows and Light. In February 1979 he played Havana Jam in Cuba with the Trio of Doom, and DownBeat readers named him top electric bassist in 1978.

Word of Mouth and after

Word of Mouth (July 1981, Warner Bros.), produced by Jaco and recorded in 1980 and 1981, runs 43:53 and has Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Michael Brecker, Tom Scott, Toots Thielemans, Peter Erskine and Jack DeJohnette; the first 50,000 copies omitted musician credits after a Warner Bros. and CBS lawsuit. AllMusic gave it four stars. He left Weather Report in 1982, and later records include Invitation (1983, live) and Stuttgart Aria (1986, with Bireli Lagrene). A concert with Thielemans in Brussels in 1985 was praised by critics.

Jaco Pastorius died on September 21, 1987 in Fort Lauderdale, aged 35. He was elected to the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988. Bass Player magazine ranked him second, after James Jamerson, on its list of the 100 greatest bassists, and Jeff Ament, Flea, John Myung, Billy Sheehan and Robert Trujillo have cited him. The documentary Jaco (2014) was directed by Paul Marchand and Stephen Kijak and produced by Trujillo and John Battsek, and Bill Milkowski wrote the 1995 biography Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius.

Records

Songs

Weather Report, Joni Mitchell

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Sources

  1. Jaco Pastorius, Wikipedia
  2. The Life of Jaco, jacopastorius.com
  3. Word of Mouth, Wikipedia
  4. Heavy Weather, Wikipedia