🦑 BAY OF GIGS 4 // JACO 🦑
The Heavyweight Champ on Joni Mitchell's late Asylum-era Recordings (1976-1980)
Jaco Pastorius' greatest incubation period was during his time with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders, a powerhouse R&B big band surfing the Chitlin Circuit. Jaco was young and virtually unknown. He had just become a father, and this new responsibility accelerated his pursuit of a sustainable career. "Well, this is it,” he told his brother when his first child was born. “Now I gotta be the greatest bass player that ever hit the planet. I gotta go out and do something so I can make a real living at this. I can't keep playing in stupid bars for no money. I've got a family to take care of."1
Jaco's bandmates in the C.C. Riders remember him practicing the bass virtually constantly. Besides playing the five-hour C.C. Rider shows every night, he practiced on the bus en route to every new city. Simultaneously, he mined the older, more experienced members of the band for information on harmony and arranging, and he was picking up these skills at an alarming rate.
Since he was a child, Jaco told everyone within earshot — (including Ray Brown!!!) — that he was the greatest bass player in the world. When his eponymous first album was released in 1976 he called collect on these sentiments. The debut sent a shockwave through the bass world. With this album, Jaco bestowed his technical faculty, sound, use of harmonics, and horn-like soloing unto the collective consciousness of the instrument. "Donna Lee" and "Portrait of Tracy" became essential learning for the electric bass overnight.2
At this point, it became clear that Jaco was the electric bass’s first true virtuoso. Single handedly, he altered the trajectory of the instrument’s development. With any virtuoso, a lot of the discourse focuses on their surface level aesthetics, i.e. speed and technique.
Also known as shredding, Jaco certainly did a lot of it. Melting face is an important part of Jaco's legacy! I think shredding is the great cross-cultural communicator… you could've dropped him in basically any part of the world in 1976 and he would've been the shit.3
When we focus too much on the shredding, we tend to lose sight of the more vulnerable parts of Jaco’s playing. This is what continues to set him apart from any other bassist. As drummer and fellow C.C. Rider Allyn Robinson put it:
"[Jaco's] playing was so emotional and so creative, but it wasn't cluttered. As busy as it often was, it always flowed. It was like a living, breathing thing; it had that yin and yang. The beauty in Jaco's playing was not in the obvious things. It wasn't that he could play fast; it was in his phrasing."4 (emphasis mine)
Jaco's touch, sound, accompaniment, and melodicism define him. In the late 70s and early 80s, a generation of bassists rushed to replicate the sounds from Jaco’s first record. Even today there is someone doing their best Jaco impersonation on instagram every minute. But for my money, it is all blaspheming.5
The best examples of the more ~sensitive~ side of Jaco’s playing are the final four Asylum-era Joni Mitchell records, spanning from 1976-1980: Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, Mingus, and Shadows and Light.6 On these records, Jaco is a melodic foil to Joni, a kind of sonic wizard operating in the interstices of Mitchell's avant singer-songwriterdom.
HEJIRA
Pastorius was the final overdub on Hejira; Joni, dissatisfied with traditional bass playing, was told to check out "this weird bass player in Florida"— and boy are we glad she did.7 Even though he’s only on four songs, Jaco is the sound of this record.
Joni Mitchell never had a #1 hit, but "Coyote" is about as iconic as it gets. For Joni, the song was a test flight of new aesthetics; its combination of acoustic guitar, fretless bass, and congas would characterize her sound for the latter half of the 70s. Using open harmonics, Jaco provides support from the bottom and harmony on top, culminating in one of his greatest basslines.
"Hejira" showcases Jaco's ability to play whole notes better than basically anyone. On another bass track, he plays counterpoint to Joni’s vocal; he was really the only bassist who could've done this.
"Black Crow" is a midtempo groover. Jaco holds it down — I have a feeling that someone told him to show some restraint in the studio, because this is basically the least amount of notes I have ever heard him play on a tempo like this. There's a live version on Shadows and Light where we can hear him really going for it.8
"Refuge of the Roads" devolves into a 3 over 4 at the end; Jaco finishes out the album with a chorus of harmonized bass.
DON JUAN'S RECKLESS DAUGHTER
The next year, Joni would head into the studio to record Don Juan's Reckless Daughter. This album was critically panned, but as far as studio recordings go, Don Juan showcases what made their musical relationship so special. Unlike Hejira, Joni began the recording process of Don Juan with Jaco in tow. As such, a lot of this album feels like a duet between the two. They are of one mind here.
"Talk to Me" is about how bad Bob Dylan is at parties. Jaco imitates Joni imitating a chicken at 2:50.9
Jaco comes in strong on "Jericho" — sound! His tone still holds up today, but I wonder what it was like to hear this sound coming through the speakers when it was still new and still in the hands of just one person. In general, he is a lot more forceful on this record.
Here's a live recording from 1976 of Joni and Jaco playing "Jericho," earlier in their relationship. They're even more stripped down than the studio recordings, and Jaco plays “Portrait of Tracy” for the last half. No one should be allowed to play harmonics ever again after this.
MINGUS
This one's for the heads! Joni made an album in collaboration with the great Charles Mingus in the final months of his life. Mingus veered even further into experimentalism. The album's six songs are interspersed with five field recordings of the ailing master, giving the album the feeling of a mixtape. The personnel on this album is a murderers' row of New York musicians: Herbie Hancock, Peter Erskine, Wayne Shorter, Don Alias, Jaco.
[[[NOTE ON “EXPERIMENTAL SESSIONS”: Prior to recording Mingus, Joni recorded some experimental demos in New York. The personnel for these demos are somehow as outrageous as the actual album. Some of the musicians included are Eddie Gomez (of Bill Evans’ pedigree) on bass, Jan Hammer and John Mclaughlin (of Mahavishnu Orchestra) on synth and guitar respectively. Phil Woods and Gerry Mulligan on Saxophones. Tony Williams and John Guerin on drums. Mingus duets Joni on a few songs.
Eddie Gomez sounds GOOD, like, really good. More than history remembers, Jaco had a lot more in common with the low-action, direct injection, upright bass sound of the 70’s. As such, Jaco and Gomez sound simpatico on Joni’s material.]]]
On Mingus, Joni abandons the duet format of her previous two albums in favor of vocalese. She excels in this format and avoids its typical pitfalls, mostly because she can write lyrics that aren't god-awful.
Jaco's chromatic intro on "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines" is pure showtime. Bass as steel pan.
On “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” Joni turns John Handy’s solo on the original 1959 recording into a vocalese eulogy for saxophonist Lester Young. This track is the standout of the album. Following Joni around the song's 12 bars, Jaco shows that he really was one of the best and most responsive walkers ever on the bass. There’s a lot of forward momentum on this slow swinger. Wayne Shorter channels the mysticism of Mingus's writing like only he can. Mr. Gone!
SHADOWS AND LIGHT
After the release of Mingus, Joni assembled Jaco, Pat Metheny, Lyle Mays, Michael Brecker, and Don Alias into a touring band that Metheny would later refer to as “a ferrari that was only allowed to drive around the block.” Frankly, I agree with Metheny's assessment, but Joni Mitchell is certainly the only singer-songwriter of her generation that could have handled a band with this much artillery.
Jaco was supposed to be musical director but offloaded his responsibilities to the then–25 year old Metheny. This group would be immortalized in Mitchell's 1980 live recording Shadows and Light. This is the final album from the Asylum era.
They are out for blood! This album is one part live Joni Mitchell recording, one part one-upmanship from a cast of generational instrumentalists — everyone gets an open solo.
This is the best version of "Edith and the Kingpin”; it leaves us wishing that Metheny had been in the studio with Joni and Jaco for the preceding three albums.10
On "Dry Cleaner from Des Moines," Jaco plays low E natural at every available opportunity, while Brecker goes to outer space on this Bb blues. I like to think of someone, who maybe had only ever listened to Blue, going to see an outdoor Joni Mitchell concert and being greeted with the most out shit ever. Jaco would sound ridiculous here if he wasn’t so fucking good.
Jaco airdrops the bassline from his song "Kuru" at the end of "Black Crow." Damn he is playing fast! Apparently, he tried to fire Brecker before the tour, but the saxophonist sounds great the whole time, especially on this song.
"Free Man in Paris" is great; the band is driving. Jaco took an active part in mixing the Weather Report records because he knew as well as anyone that a big part of his sound is being really loud. Shadows and Light is no exception.
Jaco’s open solo is important. “Slang” here quotes the theme from The High and the Mighty and Hendrix’s “Third Stone From the Sun.” tying them together with some early looping, distorted barrages of harmonics, and some quintessential Jaco grooves. This feels like the thesis of his playing.
Inevitably, the center could not hold in this music. Joni’s records after Mingus marked her return to rock music. Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays would have a long and successful career as members of the Pat Metheny Group. Michael Brecker went on to be a titan of the modern saxophone.
In 1981, Jaco released the excellent album "Word of Mouth," on which he explored big band music for the first time. But this was really the last high point of his career. Within 5 years, he would be tragically murdered, his last months spent living in Washington Square Park. A genius gone far too soon.
Even if Jaco Pastorius's 1976 self-titled debut album was all that we had, his place in the bass pantheon would probably be the same. However, the debut does not tell the whole story. Joni Mitchell’s late 70s recordings give us a view of his musicianship in an environment that he himself did not create. He elevated Joni’s music without overpowering it. He was one of the bass’s great melodic voices, chops or not!
When I listen back to these recordings, it strikes me how much of the aesthetics of the 80s is nascent here. The fretless bass would become a fad of 80s pop music; Pat Metheny's dry-wet rig that he uses on Shadows and Light would become standard practice of the New York and LA studios, and Joni Mitchell's reverberating, sparse, guitar-centered records would become part of pop music's aesthetic consciousness as well. Even today, a lot of the Mk.gee guitar sound that everyone lost their mind over last year is the aesthetics of Jaco, Joni, and Metheny, played by one person at one time.
Of course, there's a lot more Jaco music than this. Besides his own albums, he recorded music with Pat Metheny, Little Beaver, Herbie Hancock, Michel Columbier, Al Di Meola, and Flora Purim (I think "Midwestern Nights Dream" on Metheny's Bright Size Life is one of jazz’s great bass melodies). But these four albums with Joni Mitchell showcase Jaco as a musician capable of shaping his ideas around another person's works better than any other set of recordings.
That’s all for now! Here is a bootleg from LA’s Greek Theatre in 1979. Joni, Jaco, Tony, Herbie, and Don Alias. It is documentation of a special moment in American music. This is the Laurel Canyon equivalent of Bird at St Nick’s.11 Jaco sounds incredible despite the quality.
No surprise, these musicians were operating on the highest level on the road, and they were making shit up! The music is alive. No one really takes chances like this anymore?? They are really listening to each other. Jaco plays that “Dry Cleaner From Des Moines” intro perfectly here, no studio magic needed. Herbie is a scientist, Joni is a sage. The crowd knows the lyrics to “Twisted?” Jaco is on his best behavior with Tony behind the ride cymbal. A real treat!
Bill Milkowski, Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius, Anniversary ed. (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2005), 38.
Before all is said and done, I’m gonna end up writing at least three of these on the heavyweight champ.
Many of Jaco’s pivotal recordings showcase his technical ability (“Havona,” “Donna Lee,” “Cha Cha,” basically everything on Night Passage etc). His discography has no shortage of moments that showcase why he was good in 15 seconds or less.
Jaco’s early musical training happened in Juke Joints and all night blues clubs in South Florida. Raw technical facility was necessary for survival in these spaces.
Bill Milkowski, Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius, Anniversary ed. (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 2005), 49.
"If Charlie Parker was a gunslinger, there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats."
Asylum was record label founded by David Geffen and Elliot Roberts in 1971. Specializing in singer-songwriters, the label hosted Joni from 1972-1980
For my money, Jaco’s one greatest melodic performances the intro to Weather Report’s "Cannonball". Joe Zawinul told Jaco that he didn't need to prove to the older and much more experienced band that he could play.
David Yaffe, Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell (New York: Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017)
The arrangement comes from the experimental New York sessions, not the original on The Hissing of Summer Lawns.