| Birth name | John Francis Anthony Pastorius III |
|---|---|
| Born | (1951-12-01)December 1, 1951 Norristown, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Died | September 21, 1987(1987-09-21) (aged 35) Wilton Manors, Florida |
| Genres | Jazz, jazz fusion, big band, folk-jazz, funk |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, producer |
| Instruments | Bass guitar |
| Years active | 1964–1987 |
| Labels | Epic, Warner Bros., Columbia, ECM, CBS, Elektra |
| Associated acts | Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, Weather Report, Word of Mouth, Trio of Doom, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders
Notable Instrument: |
An American jazz musician, composer, big band leader and electric bass player. He is best known for his work with Weather Report from 1976 to 1981, as well as work with artists including Joni Mitchell, Pat Metheny, and his own solo projects.
As a musician, he developed an influential approach to bass playing that combined the use of complex harmony with virtuosic technique. His signature approach employed Latin-influenced funk, lyrical solos on fretless bass, bass chords, and innovative use of harmonics. He was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1988, one of only seven bassists so honored (and the only electric bassist).
Pastorius was born December 1, 1951, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Jack Pastorius, a big band singer and drummer, and Stephanie Katherine Haapala Pastorius and was the first of their three children. His grandmother was a Finn named Kaisa Eriika Isojärvi. He was of Finnish, Sami, German, Swedish, and Irish ancestry.
In 1960, his family moved to Oakland Park, Florida, near Fort Lauderdale. Pastorius went to St. Clement’s Catholic School in Wilton Manors, and he was an altar boy at the adjoining church. He went to Northeast High School in Oakland Park. He was talented in football, basketball, and baseball, and he picked up music at an early age. He often watched baseball with his father. His nickname was influenced by his love of sports and by umpire Jocko Conlan. He changed the spelling from “Jocko” to “Jaco” after French pianist Alex Darqui misspelled it on a note. He preferred the misspelling. His seemingly endless energy led his younger brother, Gregory, to call him Mowgli after the wild boy in The jungle book
By 1968–1969, at the age of 17, Pastorius had begun to appreciate jazz and had saved enough money to buy an upright bass. Its deep, mellow tone appealed to him, though it strained his finances. He had difficulty maintaining the instrument, which he attributed to the humidity in Florida. When he woke one day to find it had cracked, he traded it for a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass.
His first break came when he became the bassist for Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders He also played on various local R&B and jazz records during that time, such as with Little Beaver and Ira Sullivan.
In 1973 at the age of 22, Pastorius was teaching bass at the University of Miami. While at UM he made contact with many of the great music students who were going through the program at that time, including Pat Metheny, who enrolled in 1972 but was too advanced a player to remain a student and likewise became part of the UM music faculty at the age of 18.
In 1974, Pastorius began playing with Metheny. They recorded together, first with Paul Bley as leader and Bruce Ditmas on drums, on an album later titled “Jaco,” for pianist Paul Bley and Carol Goss’s Improvising Artists label (it was Metheny’s recording debut), then with drummer Bob Moses on a trio album on the ECM label, entitled Bright Size Life (1976).
In 1975, Pastorius was introduced to Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer Bobby Colomby, who had been asked by Columbia Records to find “new talent” for their jazz division.Pastorius’s first album, produced by Colomby, was Jaco Pastorius (1976), a breakthrough album for the electric bass. Many consider this the finest bass album ever recorded;[2] it was widely praised by critics. The album also boasted a lineup of heavyweights in the jazz community at the time – including Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, Lenny White, Hubert Laws, Don Alias, and Michael Brecker. Even the soul singers Sam & Dave reunited to appear on the track “Come On, Come Over”.
Some time prior to the sessions for his debut album, he attended a concert in Miami by the jazz band Weather Report. After the concert, he approached keyboardist Joe Zawinul, who fronted the band. According to Zawinul, Pastorius walked up to him after the concert and talked about the performance, saying that it was all right but that he had expected more. He then went on to introduce himself, adding that he was “the greatest bass player in the world”. An unamused Zawinul at first told him to “get the fuck outta here.” According to Zawinul (quoted in Milkowski’s book), Pastorius persisted and as they talked the Austrian found himself reminded of his own younger self, the “brash young man” in Cannonball Adderley’s band. Pastorius’s attitude that night made Zawinul admire the unknown young bassist after all; he asked for a demo tape, which he received at his hotel room the next day. Zawinul listened to some of the tape and realized at once that the young man had considerable technical skills and real potential. He gave him an address to get in touch by mail, and thus began a correspondence between the two. In time, Pastorius sent Zawinul an early rough mix of his solo album.
Pastorius joined Weather Report during the recording sessions for Black Market (1976), and he became a vital part of the band by virtue of the unique qualities of his bass playing, his skills as a composer (and, in time, arranger) and his exuberant showmanship on stage.
Pastorius guested on many albums by other artists, as for example in 1976 with Ian Hunter of Mott the Hoople fame, on All American Alien Boy, which again featured David Sanborn as well as Aynsley Dunbar. Other recordings included Joni Mitchell’s Hejira album, and a solo album by Al Di Meola, both released in 1976. Soon after that, Weather Report bass player Alphonso Johnson left to start his own band. Zawinul invited Pastorius to join the band, where he played alongside Zawinul and Shorter until 1981. During his time with Weather Report, Pastorius made his mark on jazz, notably by being featured on the Grammy Award-nominated Heavy Weather (1977). Not only did this album showcase Pastorius’s bass playing and songwriting, he also received a co-producing credit with Zawinul and even played drums on his self-composed “Teen Town”. The song was recorded by Marcus Miller on his (1993) studio album, The Sun Don’t Lie, as well as composing a song, “Mr. Pastorius” on the same album, in tribute to his friend and colleague.
In the course of his musical career, Pastorius played on dozens of recording sessions for other musicians, both in and out of jazz circles. He also collaborated with jazz figures Flora Purim and Airto Moreira. Pastorius can be heard on Moreira’s 1977 release I’m Fine, How Are You? His signature sound is prominent on Purim’s 1978 release Everyday Everynight, on which he played the bass melody for a Michel Colombier composition entitled “The Hope”, and performed bass and vocals on one of his own compositions, entitled “Las Olas”.
Near the end of his career, he guested on low-key releases by jazz artists including guitarist Mike Stern, guitarist Bireli Lagrene and drummer Brian Melvin. In 1985, he recorded an instructional video, Modern Electric Bass, hosted by bassist Jerry Jemmott.
Pastorius left Weather Report in late 1981 as he began pursuing his interest in creating a big band solo project named Word of Mouth, one that found its debut aurally on his second solo release, Word of Mouth. This 1981 album also featured guest appearances by several jazz musicians: Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Peter Erskine, harmonica player Toots Thielemans, and Hubert Laws. The album evidenced Pastorius’s composing talent alongside the focus on his instrumental performance. It also demonstrated his skills in production and his ability to deal with the studio logistics of a project that was recorded not only on both coasts of the United States, but also overseas: he recorded Thielemans’s contributions in Belgium. However, according to Milkowski and company boss Bruce Lundvall, the sessions and production became painfully expensive and the album that emerged was very advanced listening and without appeal to the wider jazz audiences at the time; also, these audiences were moving away from the more loose, improvising and “chamber-like” jazz-rock styles of the seventies towards sounds and stylings that emphasized compressed power soloing and a more commercial and sheeny sound. Warner Bros had signed Pastorius on a very favorable contract due to his groundbreaking playing and his star quality at the time, in the late seventies, but now found themselves with a very difficult-to-sell second album on their hands, and the next year they released Pastorius from his contract. He was not signed by anyone else for quite some time.
On his 30th birthday, December 1, 1981, he held a party at a club in Fort Lauderdale, flew in some of the artists from his Word of Mouth project, and other musicians that included Don Alias, and Michael Brecker. The event was recorded by his friend and engineer Peter Yianilos, who intended it as a birthday gift. The concert remained unreleased until 1995.
Pastorius toured in 1982; his visit to Japan was the highlight, and it was at this time that bizarre tales of Pastorius’s deteriorating behavior first surfaced. He shaved his head, painted his face black and threw his bass into Hiroshima Bay at one point. This tour recording was released in Japan as Twins I and Twins II and later condensed for an American release, which was known as Invitation.
In 1982, he recorded a third solo album, which made it as far as some unpolished demo tapes, a steelpans-tinged release entitled Holiday for Pans, which once again showcased him as a composer and producer rather than a performer. He could not find a distributor for the album and the album was never released; however, it has since been widely bootlegged. In 2003, a cut from Holiday for Pans, entitled “Good Morning Anya”, was included on Rhino Records’ Pastorius anthology Punk Jazz.
In his early career Pastorius had avoided alcohol and drugs. With Weather Report he increasingly used alcohol and other drugs, the abuse of which exacerbated his mental issues and led to increasingly erratic and sometimes anti-social behavior.
Pastorius was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in late 1982 following his Word of Mouth tour of Japan, during which his erratic behavior had become an increasing source of concern for his band members. Drummer Peter Erskine’s father, Dr. Fred Erskine, suggested that Pastorius was showing signs of the condition and, on his return from the tour, his wife, Ingrid, had Pastorius committed to Holy Cross hospital under the Florida Mental Health Act, where he was diagnosed and prescribed lithium to stabilize his moods.
Pastorius had shown numerous signs of the condition long before his initial diagnosis, though they were too mild to diagnose at the time as mental illness; they were regarded instead as eccentricities or character flaws. Hypomania, a psychiatric diagnosis for a milder form of mania characterized by periodic hyperactivity and elevated mood, has been associated with enhanced creativity.According to friends and family, these periods may have been a driving force behind his creation of music.
By 1986, Pastorius’s health had further deteriorated and he began living on the streets after being evicted from his New York apartment. In July 1986, following intervention by his then ex-wife Ingrid with the help of his brother Gregory, he was admitted to Bellevue Hospital in New York, where he was prescribed carbamazepine in preference to lithium. He moved back to Fort Lauderdale in December of that year, and again lived on the streets for weeks at a time.
After sneaking onstage at a Carlos Santana concert on September 11, 1987 and being ejected from the premises, Pastorius made his way to the Midnight Bottle Club in Wilton Manors, Florida. After reportedly kicking in a glass door, having been refused entrance to the club, he was engaged in a violent confrontation with the club bouncer, Luc Havan. Pastorius was hospitalized for multiple facial fractures and injuries to his right eye and left arm and fell into a coma.
Initially, there were encouraging signs that he would come out of the coma and recover, but they soon faded. A massive brain hemorrhage a few days later led to brain death. Pastorius died on September 21, 1987, aged 35, at Broward General Medical Center in Fort Lauderdale and was buried at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale.
In the wake of Pastorius’s death, Havan was charged with second degree murder but later pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Because he had no prior convictions, and recognizing time served while waiting for the verdict, the court sentenced him to 22 months in prison and five years’ probation. After four months in prison, he was paroled for good behaviour.
Pastorius was noted for his virtuosic bass lines which combined Afro-Cuban rhythms, inspired by the likes of Cachao López, with R&B to create 16th-note funk lines syncopated with ghost notes. He played these with a floating thumb technique on the right hand, anchoring on the bridge pickup while playing on the E and A strings and muting the E string with his thumb while playing on higher strings. Examples include “Come On, Come Over” from the album Jaco Pastorius and “The Chicken” from The Birthday Concert.
He was also known for popularizing the fretless electric bass, with which he was able to achieve an almost horn-like tone while playing in the upper register. Examples include the melodies on “Birdland” from the Weather Report album Heavy Weather and “Three Views of a Secret” from the Weather Report album Night Passage, as well as his line on the Joni Mitchell song “Refuge of the Road” from her album Hejira.
One of Pastorius’s innovations was in the use of harmonics, which isolate the overtones of a note by muting the string at a harmonic node, resulting in a much higher note than would otherwise be sounded. He used this technique extensively to construct melodies, such as in his composition Portrait of Tracy from his eponymous album, and the melody from the popular Weather Report tune “Birdland,” which is often mistaken for guitar.
Jaco is most frequently associated with the 1962 Fender Jazz Bass nicknamed the Bass of Doom, which had its frets removed. Pastorius initially claimed that he removed the frets himself but later said he had bought the bass with the frets already removed. Pastorius finished the fretboard with marine epoxy (Pettit’s PolyPoxy) to protect the wood from the roundwound Rotosound Swing 66 strings he used. The Bass of Doom was heavily worn and was repaired several times, most notably in the mid-1980s when the bass was smashed into a number of pieces and rebuilt with figured maple veneers added to the front and back to improve the structural integrity.
Though Jaco played both fretted and fretless, he preferred the fretless, because he felt frets were a hindrance, once calling them “speed bumps”. However, he said in the instructional video that he never practiced with the fretless because the strings “eat the neck up”.
In 1986, shortly before he entered Bellevue hospital, Jaco’s Fender bass was stolen. In 1993, the bass was in the hands of a New York City music shop. In 2008, it was subsequently acquired by Robert Trujillo, bassist with Metallica. Although Trujillo currently owns the instrument, the Metallica bassist agreed in writing to relinquish the instrument to the family at any time for the same purchase price.
Jaco Pastorius used the “Variamp” EQ (equalization) controls on his two Acoustic 360 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. He also controlled his tone color with a rackmount MXR digital delay unit that fed a second Acoustic amp rig.
During the final three years of his life he used Hartke cabinets because of the bright character of aluminum speaker cones (as opposed to paper speaker cones). These provided a bright, clear sound. He typically used the delay in a chorus-like mode, providing a shimmering stereo doubling effect. He often used the fuzz control built in on the Acoustic 360. For the bass solo “Slang” on Weather Report’s live album 8:30 (1979), Pastorius used the MXR digital delay to layer and loop a chordal figure and then soloed over it; the same technique, with a looped bass riff, can be seen during his solo spot on the Joni Mitchell concert video Shadows and Light, and also during his performance of “Third Stone from the Sun”
He has been called “arguably the most important and ground-breaking electric bassist in history” and “perhaps the most influential electric bassist today”. William C. Banfield, director of Africana Studies, Music and Society at Berklee College, describes Jaco as one of the few original American virtuosos who defined a musical movement, alongside Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Christian, Bud Powell, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus and Wes Montgomery.
Jaco Pastorius changed our world in the short time he was here. In seven years, between 1975 and 1982, Jaco’s staggering contributions to discs by Pat Metheny, Joni Mitchell, and Weather Report radically upended our expectations of electric bass, and he further cemented his legend on records by Herbie Hancock, Albert Mangelsdorff, Michel Colombier, Al Di Meola, and others. In his own work, the charismatic Philadelphia native fused seemingly disparate elements—big bands, Motown, the Caribbean/Latin flavors of his South Florida upbringing, the influences of jazz heroes like Charles Mingus and Paul Chambers, the funk of James Brown’s bassists, Western classical, the innovations of contemporaries like Jerry Jemmott, and Paul McCartney’s melodicism—into a hip, soulful, signature cocktail with more than a twist of rock & roll attitude. Three decades after Jaco’s death at the hands of a South Florida bouncer, he’s still the gold standard for expressiveness and intonation on fretless bass, Jazz Bass back-pickup tone, and 16th-note stamina, but few can match his effortless blend of abundant technique and earthy groove.
Bass Stuff 