Jaco Pastorius
Albums
It's impossible to hear Jaco Pastorious' debut album today as it sounded when it was first released in 1976. The opening track -- his transcription for fretless electric bass of the [more]
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Bassist Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth orchestra was an unfulfilled dream, a worthy concept that did not last long enough to live up to its potential. Its debut album was released [more]
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Appearances
Weather Report's biggest-selling album is that ideal thing, a popular and artistic success -- and for the same reasons. For one thing, Joe Zawinul revealed an unexpectedly potent [more]
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This expansive four-disc anthology essentially covers the recorded history of the guitar in the 20th century, beginning with the ragtime banjo that set the [more]
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It's impossible to hear Jaco Pastorious' debut album today as it sounded when it was first released in 1976. The opening track -- his transcription for fretless electric bass of the [more]
- List Price: $16.99
- Member Price: $4.98
![Weather Report [1982]](/cache/JHS/d3/130x130_on-sale_d36589cul96.png)
For some crafty reason, Weather Report gave its 11th Columbia album the same eponymous title as its first, which no doubt led to massive retail confusion. It is the last WR [more]
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In conjunction with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns' ten-part 2000 PBS special, Columbia/Legacy and Verve teamed up to issue a special series of [more]
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With Herbie Hancock's recent surprise Grammy® victory for River: The Joni Letters, winning the award for the year's best album, it serves as [more]
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In an era when box sets are so plentiful and are basically de rigueur for any major, and some not so major labels, it's virtually a wonder that a Weather Report box set didn't [more]
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Pat Metheny's debut studio album is a good one, a trio date that finds him already laying down the distinctively cottony, slightly withdrawn tone and asymmetrical phrasing that [more]
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At the end of their tour European tour -- and the triumphant concert in Rome documented on Heavy 'n Jazz -- Jaco Pastorius, guitarist Bireli Lagrene, and [more]
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Bassist Jaco Pastorius' Word of Mouth orchestra was an unfulfilled dream, a worthy concept that did not last long enough to live up to its potential. Its debut album was released [more]
- List Price: $42.98
- Member Price: $38.68
Biography
- Born Dec 1st 1951 in Norristown, PA
- Died Sep 21st 1987 in Fort Lauderdale, FL
Jaco Pastorius was a meteor who blazed on to the scene in the 1970s, only to flame out tragically in the 1980s. With a brilliantly fleet technique and fertile melodic imagination, Pastorius made his fretless electric bass leap out from the depths of the rhythm section into the front line with fluid machine-gun-like passages that demanded attention. He also sported a strutting, dancing, flamboyant performing style and posed a further triple-threat as a talented composer, arranger and producer. He and Stanley Clarke were the towering influences on their instrument in the 1970s.
Born in Pennsylvania, Pastorius grew up in Fort Lauderdale, where he played with visiting R&B and pop acts while still a teenager and built a reputation as a local legend. Everything started to come together for him quickly once he started playing with another rookie fusionmeister, Pat Metheny, around 1974. By 1976, he had been invited to join Weather Report, where he remained until 1981, gradually becoming a third lead voice along with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. Outside Weather Report, he found himself in constant demand as a sessionman and producer, playing on Joni Mitchell, Blood Sweat and Tears, Paul Bley, Bireli Lagrene and Ira Sullivan albums -- and his first eponymous solo album for Epic in 1976 was hailed as a tour de force. From 1980 to 1984, he toured and recorded with his own band, the innovative Word of Mouth that fluctuated in size from a large combo to a big band.
Alas, Pastorius became overwhelmed by mental problems, exacerbated by drugs and alcohol in the mid-'80s, leading to several embarrassing public incidents (one was a violent crack-up on-stage at the Hollywood Bowl in mid-set at the 1984 Playboy Jazz Festival). Such episodes made him a pariah in the music business and toward the end of his life, he had become a street person, reportedly sighted in drug-infested inner-city hangouts. He died in 1987 from a physical beating sustained while trying to break into the Midnight Club in Fort Lauderdale. Almost totally forgotten at the time of his death, Pastorius was immediately canonized afterwards (Marcus Miller wrote a tune "Mr. Pastorius" in his honor) -- too late for him to have received therapy or help. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
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