Pastorius was One of the Preeminent Bass Guitarists - Tragically the Talented Musician's Life Ended Far Too Soon
In the early eighties the Lower East Side of Manhattan was being gentrified and would become the breeding ground for some of that decade's and beyond most influential artists, writers and musicians. The small slice of lower Manhattan was a drug buyer's supermarket and would also come to be known for the decline and death of many who were famous and others who were not.
A night club called CBGB that opened downtown, was said to be the original birth place of punk music in the U.S.. Many famous bands and singers who got their start at the renowned club and other venues in this drug infested, crime ridden area of Manhattan were: Madonna, Blondie, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Plasmatics, Sonic Youth, The Strokes, Anthrax, and the Beastie Boys.
In the 80's I was a wannabe on the Punk scene, living in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and would head to South Philly on the weekends to listen to the latest punk rock bands playing at the dives on and off South Street. There, I met my future husband, a fledgling Quaker musician who looked startlingly like Billy Idol.
My husband and his shyster manager, an art dealer on the run because he had ripped off elderly friends of his grandmother with a postage stamp scheme, were living in a loft in an area of Philadelphia called Fishtown.
The neighborhood, once a thriving fishing port in the city of "Brotherly Love", was now a ghost of it's once industrial past, and inhabited by Polish families three generations deep that were hooked on a cheap street drug controlled by South Philly organized crime families, called crystal meth.
One weekend after returning from the Hampton's in New York where my husbands family have a summer home, a gang of neighborhood hooligans bashed in the windows and headlights of my mother's car I had borrowed, and ran us out of the Polish enclave. They thought if even one black person moved into their racially segregated neighborhood, more would follow.
We left Philly and moved to New York's Lower East Side. I ended up working at a wearable art gallery and my husband tended bar and played piano at a bar called called Green Street, in SoHo.
One evening a homeless looking, drug addled musician turned up at the bar with two bass guitars, and little else. He asked my husband who happened to be working that night, if he could perform a few sets. When informed by management that he would not be paid, he agreed to play for drinks and a meal.
That bedraggled musician turned turned out to be one of the all time bass guitar greats, Jaco Pastorius, a solo artist and one time member of Weather Report, one of the preeminent jazz fusion bands of the 70's and 80's.
Pastorius became a fixture at the bar but you never knew which Jaco would show up. Strung out on drugs, alcohol and suffering from severe mental health issues, sometimes the jazz great showed up and at other times a mere shadow of his old self would be in attendance or not at all.
One of the guitars he showed up with turned out to be his original "Bass of Doom" 1962 fretless, a cherished instrument that he later sold or traded to buy drugs.
The bass would eventually turn up for sale on EBay and was at the center of a lawsuit when a New York city shop owner had purchased it and did not realize the instrument's notorious history. The family lost the suit but was later gifted with the fretless by Metallica bassist, Robert Trujillo.
John Francis Anthony "Jaco" Pastorius III was born December 1951 in Norristown Pennsylvania to a big band drummer father and house wife mother.
The family moved to Florida and he excelled in music and sports and was bestowed the moniker Jocko after the umpire Jocko Conlon. He changed his name to Jaco when French pianist Alex Darqui misspelled his name in a note he had sent the young artist, and Pastorius liked the misspelling better.
Originally a drummer like his father, Jaco took up playing the guitar when he was forced to give up drums and sports, after he received a career ending wrist injury injury while playing football.
His big break came in 1976 when he was signed by CBS records, and he released his self-titled break through album for the bass guitar, Jaco Pastorius. Jaco's album at the time was considered to be genius. His backup band consisted of legendary jazz heavy hitters and R&B greats such as: Sam and Dave, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, Lenny White and Michael Brecker.
He joined Weather Report after attending a concert and told Austrian-born keyboard player Josef Zawinul that he was unimpressed with the groups performance that evening. He told Zawinul that he "was the greatest bassist in the world." Even though he was rebuffed, Jaco persisted until the Weather report keyboardist relented and asked for a demo tape.
Pastorious joined the group when they were recording the album Black Market and instantly became a pivotal member with his virtuosic solo skills and impressive stage presence. The group that was once mainly a staple on the white college concert circuit was now playing stadiums filled with a new audience, African-Americans.
He made guest appearances with artists such as Ian Hunter and on four Joni Mitchell albums. His real claim to fame came when helped pen and produce the Grammy Award winning Weather Report album, Heavy Weather.
Pastorius left Weather Report in 1981 and started a solo project called Word of Mouth. Jaco was not known to drink or take drugs in the early stages of his career, but during his stint touring and performing with Weather Report he began using substances both quite heavily, especially alcohol.
In 1982 started exhibiting bizarre behavior while on tour in Japan , Jaco was committed to a psychiatric hospital on his return to the U.S. by his then wife Ingrid, under the Florida Mental Health Act, a Florida statute that allows for involuntary examination of an individual showing signs of mental illness.
By 1986, I had left New York and my Quaker musician husband behind. Jaco's mental and physical health had further deteriorated from drug and alcohol abuse. Shunned by long time friends and even fans, he was evicted from his apartment and was living on the mean streets of the Lower East Side. His family intervened and had Pastorius admitted to the city's notorious Bellevue Hospital.
In 1987 he was kicked out of a Carlos Santana concert in Florida after he snuck on the stage. He later showed up at another club and was refused entrance. He kicked in a glass door and was beaten so severely by one of the club's bouncers, that he lapsed into a coma and died.
Pastorius is survived by four children; Felix, Mary, John and Julius, who keep their father's memory alive with the website JacoPastorius.com. In December 2007, Jaco's family, friends and fans all came together at the Broward Center Of Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale to celebrate the legacy of a complex and many say, brilliant musician.
On December 1, 2008, Pastorius' 57th birthday, a park in Florida's Oakland Park, a new downtown redevelopment project was named Jaco Pastorius Park, and dedicated in honor of its former most famous iconic jazz citizen.
Jaco Pastorius, gone but not forgotten...
.
In the early eighties the Lower East Side of Manhattan was being gentrified and would become the breeding ground for some of that decade's and beyond most influential artists, writers and musicians. The small slice of lower Manhattan was a drug buyer's supermarket and would also come to be known for the decline and death of many who were famous and others who were not.
A night club called CBGB that opened downtown, was said to be the original birth place of punk music in the U.S.. Many famous bands and singers who got their start at the renowned club and other venues in this drug infested, crime ridden area of Manhattan were: Madonna, Blondie, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Plasmatics, Sonic Youth, The Strokes, Anthrax, and the Beastie Boys.
In the 80's I was a wannabe on the Punk scene, living in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and would head to South Philly on the weekends to listen to the latest punk rock bands playing at the dives on and off South Street. There, I met my future husband, a fledgling Quaker musician who looked startlingly like Billy Idol.
My husband and his shyster manager, an art dealer on the run because he had ripped off elderly friends of his grandmother with a postage stamp scheme, were living in a loft in an area of Philadelphia called Fishtown.
The neighborhood, once a thriving fishing port in the city of "Brotherly Love", was now a ghost of it's once industrial past, and inhabited by Polish families three generations deep that were hooked on a cheap street drug controlled by South Philly organized crime families, called crystal meth.
One weekend after returning from the Hampton's in New York where my husbands family have a summer home, a gang of neighborhood hooligans bashed in the windows and headlights of my mother's car I had borrowed, and ran us out of the Polish enclave. They thought if even one black person moved into their racially segregated neighborhood, more would follow.
We left Philly and moved to New York's Lower East Side. I ended up working at a wearable art gallery and my husband tended bar and played piano at a bar called called Green Street, in SoHo.
One evening a homeless looking, drug addled musician turned up at the bar with two bass guitars, and little else. He asked my husband who happened to be working that night, if he could perform a few sets. When informed by management that he would not be paid, he agreed to play for drinks and a meal.
That bedraggled musician turned turned out to be one of the all time bass guitar greats, Jaco Pastorius, a solo artist and one time member of Weather Report, one of the preeminent jazz fusion bands of the 70's and 80's.
Pastorius became a fixture at the bar but you never knew which Jaco would show up. Strung out on drugs, alcohol and suffering from severe mental health issues, sometimes the jazz great showed up and at other times a mere shadow of his old self would be in attendance or not at all.
One of the guitars he showed up with turned out to be his original "Bass of Doom" 1962 fretless, a cherished instrument that he later sold or traded to buy drugs.
The bass would eventually turn up for sale on EBay and was at the center of a lawsuit when a New York city shop owner had purchased it and did not realize the instrument's notorious history. The family lost the suit but was later gifted with the fretless by Metallica bassist, Robert Trujillo.
John Francis Anthony "Jaco" Pastorius III was born December 1951 in Norristown Pennsylvania to a big band drummer father and house wife mother.
The family moved to Florida and he excelled in music and sports and was bestowed the moniker Jocko after the umpire Jocko Conlon. He changed his name to Jaco when French pianist Alex Darqui misspelled his name in a note he had sent the young artist, and Pastorius liked the misspelling better.
Originally a drummer like his father, Jaco took up playing the guitar when he was forced to give up drums and sports, after he received a career ending wrist injury injury while playing football.
His big break came in 1976 when he was signed by CBS records, and he released his self-titled break through album for the bass guitar, Jaco Pastorius. Jaco's album at the time was considered to be genius. His backup band consisted of legendary jazz heavy hitters and R&B greats such as: Sam and Dave, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, David Sanborn, Lenny White and Michael Brecker.
He joined Weather Report after attending a concert and told Austrian-born keyboard player Josef Zawinul that he was unimpressed with the groups performance that evening. He told Zawinul that he "was the greatest bassist in the world." Even though he was rebuffed, Jaco persisted until the Weather report keyboardist relented and asked for a demo tape.
Pastorious joined the group when they were recording the album Black Market and instantly became a pivotal member with his virtuosic solo skills and impressive stage presence. The group that was once mainly a staple on the white college concert circuit was now playing stadiums filled with a new audience, African-Americans.
He made guest appearances with artists such as Ian Hunter and on four Joni Mitchell albums. His real claim to fame came when helped pen and produce the Grammy Award winning Weather Report album, Heavy Weather.
Pastorius left Weather Report in 1981 and started a solo project called Word of Mouth. Jaco was not known to drink or take drugs in the early stages of his career, but during his stint touring and performing with Weather Report he began using substances both quite heavily, especially alcohol.
In 1982 started exhibiting bizarre behavior while on tour in Japan , Jaco was committed to a psychiatric hospital on his return to the U.S. by his then wife Ingrid, under the Florida Mental Health Act, a Florida statute that allows for involuntary examination of an individual showing signs of mental illness.
By 1986, I had left New York and my Quaker musician husband behind. Jaco's mental and physical health had further deteriorated from drug and alcohol abuse. Shunned by long time friends and even fans, he was evicted from his apartment and was living on the mean streets of the Lower East Side. His family intervened and had Pastorius admitted to the city's notorious Bellevue Hospital.
In 1987 he was kicked out of a Carlos Santana concert in Florida after he snuck on the stage. He later showed up at another club and was refused entrance. He kicked in a glass door and was beaten so severely by one of the club's bouncers, that he lapsed into a coma and died.
Pastorius is survived by four children; Felix, Mary, John and Julius, who keep their father's memory alive with the website JacoPastorius.com. In December 2007, Jaco's family, friends and fans all came together at the Broward Center Of Performing Arts in Fort Lauderdale to celebrate the legacy of a complex and many say, brilliant musician.
On December 1, 2008, Pastorius' 57th birthday, a park in Florida's Oakland Park, a new downtown redevelopment project was named Jaco Pastorius Park, and dedicated in honor of its former most famous iconic jazz citizen.
Jaco Pastorius, gone but not forgotten...
.
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