The Jaco Continuum

The Deluxe Anniversary Edition is not only bigger (by 74 pages and more than twice the number of photos), it’s bolder—from the striking cover photo of Jaco bending up the highest note on his trademark fretless Jazz Bass, to the included 44-minute CD, which features 14 tracks culled from the Bobbing-produced comprehensive box set Portrait of Jaco: The Early Years. Here are a few interesting excerpts from the book’s new material:

Chapter 5, The Laundromat & the Lion’s Share (1973–74), describes a period of intense jazz training, during which Jaco worked with the Peter Graves Orchestra and jammed with saxophonist Ira Sullivan and pianist Alex Darqui. Darqui recalls that their jams had a “green light rule,” which meant there were no wrong notes and no stopping; if you heard something in your head, you played it. Another key influence was jazz guitarist Joe Diorio.

Though clearly a musical elder and mentor figure, Joe Diorio developed an easy give-and-take relationship with Jaco. At one point, he gave Jaco a real eye-opener by turning him on to Nicholas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus for Chromatic Scales and Patterns (the theory book that hugely influenced both Eddie Harris and John Coltrane, molding their harmonic concepts and their approaches to intervallic playing). Diorio remembers, “Jaco asked me quite a bit about what I was doing back then, and I told him my main source of inspiration was Thesaurus for Chromatic Scales and Patterns. It opened big doors for me, and I know that book opened big doors for Jaco. Suddenly, he could see things on his instrument that he would’ve never thought about before. I mean, no matter how great your intuition is and how great whatever else you have going for you is, there is still a great deal of science and mathematics involved in the process of making music. After I told Jaco about the book, I went over to his place to practice with him one day and noticed that he had it there. He also used to ask me who I was listening to; I told him I was listening to as much Stravinsky, Bartók, and Bach as I could get my hands on. Next time I went over to Jaco’s, he had all those records, too. He was really hungry for new information in those days.”

In Chapter 6, The “Discovery” of Jaco Pastorius (1974-75), L.A. session bassist Neil Stubenhaus—then an instructor at Berklee—recalls Jaco’s impact at the school after fellow Berklee instructor Mike Gibbs brought him in for an informal clinic.

“It was just an exclusive little thing; about 20 people were invited, mostly teachers and students from the bass department. So Mike got Jaco down there, but he needed a bass because Jaco didn’t have one with him at the time. This is what tuned me in to him, because as it turned out, Jaco was totally into old Fender Jazz Basses, and that was completely my thing. I was buying them up wherever I could find them and already had at least seven or eight at that point. So Jaco borrowed one of my old Jazzes, and that was the first time I got a close-up view of what he was doing in terms of his overall sound and technique.”

In that initial lecture/demonstration at Berklee, Jaco revealed that the secret to attaining his very “woody,” upright-like sound was to play on the back pickup and to utilize the Acoustic 360 amp, which Stubenhaus also had provided for the occasion. “No one even really thought of playing on the back pickup at the time,” says Neil. “With Jazz Basses, you just cranked everything up all the way. Favoring the back pickup was not something that was done. Plus, a lot of people played P-Basses at the time, which had just one pickup. Everybody wondered how Jaco got that incredible sound, and there he was just exposing his secret to us. I mean, there was nothing like it, watching this guy, relatively unknown, humble as you please, just handing out his knowledge and showing people different things he was doing that were so obscure and beyond everyone’s imagination. Seeing Jaco walk through that door and into that room at Berklee was worth the cost of tuition.”

Jaco proceeded to lay them all out with a quick demonstration of his astounding facility. As Stubenhaus recalls, “He played Bach’s ‘Chromatic Fantasy’ for about two minutes, and that was it! The jaws were on the floor—on the floor! It was over! But more important, Jaco’s demonstration that day completely dispelled, for a lot of people, the longstanding notion that in order to be a complete bass player you had to also play upright. That was the very beginning of people in the department thinking, Perhaps there’s more to this electric instrument than people are giving credit for, and this guy is living proof. At the time, Stanley Clarke and other guys were getting popular playing electric bass, but they were all doubling bass players. Jaco was the first one to come along and forcefully stake out a unique place for himself strictly on the electric bass guitar. For a lot of us, that was significant.”

In Chapter 8, Weather Report: Cloudy, Milkowski describes an impromptu solo concert by Jaco, then at his peak powers.

While in Berlin with Weather Report in November ’79, Jaco took the opportunity of a day off (November 2) to perform a stunning solo bass concert. Also on this program of strictly solo performances were pianist Chick Corea, vibist Gary Burton, and guitarist John McLaughlin. But it was Jaco who stole the show with a gripping performance marked by focused virtuosity and artful expression. Making a dramatic entrance with the use of a wireless device on his bass, Jaco was able to literally stroll up and down the aisles of the auditorium while playing the hauntingly beautiful melody to “Continuum,” which morphed into Rodgers & Hammerstein’s lovely ballad “If I Loved You” from Carousel before returning to Jaco’s familiar theme. From there Jaco triggered a backing tape of Alan Hovahness’s “Mysterious Mountain” (a contemporary classical piece he would later record with Othello Molineaux for the ill-fated Holiday for Pans project) and held the crowd in awe by playing along while continuing to stroll throughout the hall. He went on to play snippets from Bach’s “Chromatic Fantasy,” “Barbary Coast,” “Portrait of Tracy,” and a medley of classic R&B and bebop riffs, closing the intimate performance with his standard crowd-pleasing set piece, “Slang,” complete with looped fragments, torrents of feedback, raining harmonics, percussive string slapping, and the obligatory quote from Hendrix’s “Third Stone from the Sun.” The speed, rhythmic assuredness, and sheer aggression Jaco exhibited throughout this late-’79 performance were simply astounding.

In Chapter 16, Alone Again, Naturally (August 1987), Jaco has returned to the Sunshine State to clean up and attempt to reclaim his career. Though his sad fate lay just ahead, his legacy and musical gift to the world continued to pay dividends.

On August 4, 1987, Jaco was back in jail. He had been arrested and charged with driving a stolen 1971 yellow Lincoln Continental on the running track at Holiday Park (with no driver’s license). Jaco was taken to the Pompano Detention Center, where he was to remain for the next month. Steve Salo, who had gone to Northeast High two years behind Jaco, happened to be working in the prison as a G.E.D. teacher in the adult education program. A musician himself, Salo also happened to be a big Jaco fan.

Salo remembers getting a phone call at home one Sunday evening from the officer on duty, Sgt. Jim Cerone. “Cerone also went to Northeast High, and we had talked about Jaco before,” Salo says. “So when he called that night and said, ‘Hey man, you’ll never guess who we just booked in jail,’ I sort of knew. In fact, I think I may have disappointed Cerone when I blurted out Jaco’s name so quickly.”

The following morning, Salo headed over to the forensics cell to check on inmate John Pastorius. Salo asked the prison nurse why Jaco was being held in the forensics cell, a kind of solitary confinement usually reserved for the most seriously deranged cases. “She told me, ‘He’s delusional. He’s saying all this crazy stuff about being the greatest bass player in the world and spouting off that he’s got Grammy Awards.’ Of course, I had to tell her, ‘He’s not delusional! This guy does have Grammies, and he is probably the greatest electric bass player, if not one of the greatest musicians, of the 20th century. This guy rewrote the history book on jazz!’ She said, ‘Are you serious? Can you prove it?’”

During his lunch break, Salo drove home to get proof. Grabbing a copy of Jaco’s solo debut album along with copies of Weather Report’s Heavy Weather and 8:30, he sped back to the jail and presented his evidence to the nurse. “I told her, ‘Look, these are by this guy. This is the same guy.’ She informed the doctor, and the next thing I know, Jaco was taken out of the forensics cell and put in what is called a fragile cell, which is generally reserved for older people and alcoholics—people who really don’t need to be in with the hard-time punks because their personality is a little more fragile.”

At that point, Salo and Sgt. Cerone began brainstorming on how to make Jaco’s extended stay a little more comfortable. Cerone immediately suggested bringing in an instrument for Jaco to play during his period of incarceration. Since detainees were not allowed to have instruments in their cells, Salo volunteered to supervise Jaco while he played. At first, Salo brought an acoustic guitar, and Cerone later arranged for Jaco to have an electric bass with an amp. “I ended up bringing him either a guitar or a bass every day,” Salo recalls. “I almost neglected my own self just to go hang out with him. It got to a point where I was even going in on weekends, just to make his life easier. I did it because I knew who he was and I appreciated everything he had done in his career.”