When Jaco Pastorius first met Joe Zawinul, the keyboardist
and composer behind Weather Report, he had his introduction ready. "My name is
John Francis Pastorius III," he said, as Zawinul later remembered. "I'm the
greatest bass player in the world." Zawinul didn't bite that time out, but
after receiving an early mix of Jaco's solo album, he decided to call on the
bassist in late 1975. Jaco joined the group and played on two tracks on Weather
Report's Black Market: "Cannonball," and his own “Barbary Coast.” 1976
would prove a watershed year.
In 1976, Jaco Pastorius hadn't quite emerged from nowhere, (the
few prior recordings on which he could be found may have provided some hint of
what was to come), but it was the quadruple punch of fellow
legend-in-the-making Pat Metheny's debut Bright Size Life,
singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell's classic Hejira, fusion super group Weather
Report's Black Market and, most notably, the
bassist's own Jaco Pastorius, whose opening track—a duet
look at Charlie Parker's "Donna Lee" with percussionist Don
Alias that spoke of instrumental mastery and remarkable conceptual sophistication—that caused bassists around the world to look up from their instruments.
Who was this guy? Where did he come from?
Pastorius's daring, technically precise electric-bass
playing revealed his vision for the instrument that went beyond its traditional
supportive position with a taste for
counterpoint, the pursuit of melody and a readiness to cross genres. He issued
three studio albums during his lifetime and formed several novel bands under
the Word of Mouth banner, energized Weather Report when he joined the group in
1976, and was partner to Joni Mitchell from Hejira in 1976 to the
incredible double live LP Shadows and Light in 1980.
In Musician magazine, Joni said, "I know he stretched me. I
stretched him some too, inadvertently, on things like Don Juan's Reckless
Daughter. That was Alexandro Acuna, Don Alias, myself and Jaco. Alex's
background is in Latin music, so that track was getting a very Latin percussion
sound on the bottom. I said, "No , this is more North American Indian, a
more limited palette of drum sounds." So Jaco got an idea. I don't know if
he detuned his bass, but he started striking the end of the strings, up by the
bridge, and he'd slide with the palm of his palm all the way down to the head.
He set up this pattern: du du du doom, du du du doom. Well, it's a five minute
song, and three minutes into it his hand started to bleed. He shredded it
making it slide the full length of his bass strings. They turned into a grater.
So we stopped tapping and he changed to his Venus mound, below the thumb. And
when we finished the take, that was bleeding, too. So his whole hand was
bleeding. But the music was magnificent, and he was so excited because he'd discovered
a new thing. Later he built up calluses and you'd always see him doing those
slides. But then he was mad with me because I had copped his new shit for my
record! I think he might have had a different pain threshold."
