Jaco Lives!

Pushing my cart past the magazine shelf at Krogers, the cover of BassGuitar caught my eye. Jaco Lives! A tribute to the baddest bassman ever!

Ok it's at first glance another exploitation of Jaco Pastorius focusing on his punked out persona and comparing him to Hendrix. But I ended up enjoying the 2 focused articles; one biographical and one focused on his pioneering techniques.

I was a big fan of Jaco in the 70's. He was the rebel in Weather Report; the ultimate contrapuntal sideman in Joni Mitchell's Hejira; and funkmaster on Come on, Come over from his first solo album. He coaxed swells and false harmonics from his fretless electric bass or flew into crazy speeding punk jazz funk with complicated burping note damping technique and rhythm that had never been heard before. Peter Erskine at an Ohio State percussion workshop I attended described his rhythmic relationship with Jaco as feeling spiritual, unspoken. A train ride with Jaco was like going to church. He had a driven personality and ego that seemed to keep him distant from others. Seeing him with Weather Report he played far left stage and to the front, often looking annoyed with the bands sound, leaning way back on his stool in a defiant stance. Other times he played with unending intensity, sometimes literally screaming with the effort.

When he was killed outside a bar it was one of those "Aw man!!!" days. I very selfishly feel cheated when a unique artist is taken away in his prime. Why can't they all be like Clapton and clean up, enjoy life and keep playing? The balance of intensity and sensibility seems particularly difficult for artists.