FUN GUITARIST PROFILE: JACO PASTORIOUS!

Jaco Pastorius (1951-1987)
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You would instantly recognize his first 7 opening bass notes from the hit "Birdland" that he recorded with the jazz fusion group Weather Report. Born in 1951, this electric-fusion bass player is one person I was blessed to see in-concert (with Weather Report). He remains to this day, the most unconventional bass player I have ever seen! Pastorious came from a wonderful background. The son of a jazz drummer, Jaco played the saxophone, drums, guitar and piano. Although he was self-taught, he landed a teaching job at The University of Miami where he taught Jazz. You would know his playing "instantly". He redefined the instrument with chords, double stops, smacks and his heavy use of harmonics with dazzling speed. I saw him in a small theater with Weather Report when I was barely in high school and I can still remember him soloing, whereupon he took off a fretless bass guitar and set it flat onto the stage and extracted harmonics and the predictable feedback before picking up the instrument and playing it like a lead guitar! He recorded Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee" and toured with Pat Metheny who said:"His solo on 'Donna Lee', beyond being astounding for just the fact that it was played with a hornlike phrasing that was previously unknown to the bass guitar. That solo comes along only a few times in each generation. And then there is just his basic relationship to sound and touch; refined to a degree that some would have thought impossible on an "electric" instrument". To my sheer delight, Jaco was recruited by the lovely and enigmatic Joni Mitchell as a session musician on her own courageous Jazz-inspired albums: "Hejira", "Don Juan's Reckeless Daughter", "Mingus" (a highly under-rated CD tribute to the late Charles Mingus) and a Live DVD I highly recommend for your viewing called "Shadows & Light ". A native of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jaco tragically died on September 27, 1987 at only 35 years of age after he was beaten into a coma two weeks earlier by a nightclub bouncer who refused him entrance. The bouncer served 4 years of a lifetime sentence in jail for manslaughter. Earlier that night Pastrorious, by then heavily into drugs and alcohol, reportedly climbed onto the stage of a Carlos Santana concert only to be immediately ejected from the venue. Before his own passing, Miles Davis honored the late bassist on his album Amandla with the Marcus Miller composition "Mr. Pastorius," as Jaco was an inspiration to Marcus Miller. I was just very blessed to have seen Jaco at his peak. He was an absolute inspiration to watch in concert.