It seems that I had only just started to hear about this magnificent bass player doing absolutely incredible things with the instrument, and then he was dead. Jaco Pastorius released his first solo album in 1976, Jaco Pastorius, and was dead by 1987. During those nine years he didn't just redefine the role of the electric bass in popular music, he destroyed it and then rebuilt it from the ground up again until it was unrecognizable.
From his tenure in Weather Report; his collaborations with individuals as diverse as Pat Metheny, Herbie Hancock, and Jonnie Mitchell; and to his own too-few solo albums he never stopped looking for new ways of expressing himself through his instrument of choice. Until that time no one had thought of the bass as anything more than a means of playing a song's rhythm, and hardly any music was created with it in mind specifically.
Jaco pulled the bass out of the background where it was buried in the mix alongside the kick drum and placed it out front with the guitars, horns, and keyboards. Well you say, so what, look at funk were the bass line was front and centre from its earliest days, pushing the beat and the song ahead of it. True but it never led, Jaco wasn't just out front slapping out the beat for the big boys. In his hands the bass became a melodic instrument playing everything from leads to harmonies for vocals.
I don't know if it's a coincidence, but probably not, that in this the twentieth year anniversary of Jaco Patorius' death, Sony/BMG Legacy has released a two-disc package that traces his whole mercurial career. The Essential Jaco Pastorius being released on the 26th of June contains excerpts from his major collaborations, his years with Weather Report, and his incredible solo career.
From the start of disc one to the end of disc two they lovingly record his progress almost every inch of the way. It still takes my breath away that a young bass player not only would have the audacity and the bravery to release a solo album, but that it would feature his own compositions as well as standards. From the very first cut on his first album, he let the world know what was coming.
Article comments
1 - Pico
Very well done, Richard.