These clips come from Brian Melvin’s documentary "Reflections: On Music & Friendship with Jaco Pastorius", and were edited together by youtuber "Jaco Universe", formerly known as "Musicenthusiasm Norway".
The friggin indisputable GOAT on bass, but beyond that one of the 20th centuries all time top masters and innovators of the art of music. This video shows that despite the dark times towards the end, he still had the magic and he could have made it through. He's playing beautifully on this show, totally crushing it completely. God damn that guy was good.
Ciao from Italy...yes You was...I had to see Jaco in Genova-Italy back in 1982 with ticket already bought...but the night at the theatre they told us Jaco was sick..a Dream that did not came true....one of the saddest night of my life...
Ciao. Dicembre 1982 ma non trovo il biglietto per il giorno esatto (dopo vari traslochi..) a Genova al Teatro Margherita (si Word of Mouth) che ora non esiste più....
Saw him around this time and it was surreal. His hands and arms (up to the elbows) were covered in what appeared to be red paint. A young protege played all his licks. Then Jaco started playing "Happy Birthday." Someone in the audience complained (shouted directly at Jaco, "hey we paid good money and want to hear good music"). He slung the bass over his back and pointed at the guy in the audience and said, "I want you out - the police will be here in fifteen minutes." He eventually started playing (really well), but it was a tense few moments as Jaco continued to threaten the guy in the crowd. Then, during a great jam, he interwove Happy Birthday into the groove while staring at the guy in the audience. He also introduced the people in the band by using the names of Weather Report players. He was obviously wasted. I actually won the tickets to see him that night, and eventually walked out. When I passed the front door, there was a long queue of people looking to get their money back. I heard at the time that he was found the next morning sleeping on a sidewalk or steps of a business across the street. Not sure if that part is true. He was a tragic figure at that point.
Sometimes people like that don't realize they are sick and refuse to get REAL help. Don't tell me Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinal, Joni Mitchell and many others didn't try to pull him in. These people had to work and didn't have time to babysit a grown man. Drugs and Alcohol killed Jaco. I still love his genius regardless!!
A shame that nobody reached out to assist one of modern music's absolute geniuses. He was certainly beyond the technical skills of most players, and thinking of other large names, I don't see how nobody wanted to give a helping hand to such a creative human mind. It does fall on ourselves to take care of our body and mind (I guess Jaco didn't take this seriously to heart), but without a doubt everybody needs genuine love and compassion when we're feeling down and out to get out of whatever rut one may be in. I feel bad for Jaco not receiving perhaps as much assisting compassion as any human deserves, but I do wonder about what he might have done to himself to put him where he went.
Just wish or fantasize that someone would have gotten through to him and talked him in to giving up the music thing for a while, get back with Ingred and the kids and gotten well. But he just never got to that point.
right at the end of his performing career (he died the next year) but Jaco is playing with wonderful skill and feeling. I've heard America many times from him but this one is the sweetest.
I was lucky enough to see him in his last concert in Rome with Bireli .. I managed to shake his hand ... he had a voice similar to that of Miles. a great musician!
I met him at that stage. Didn't even recognize him. I was with another bass player who was his friend. Jaco was in a poor state. My boyfriend gave him some money... broke my heart. A year later he was dead. Tragic
@@jeromealexandre4162 Back then it's not like it is today with mental health awareness. If you were a little even 'weird" or not with with what normal was considered people just called you crazy and wrote you off sadly most times. Jaco was very unique and def strayed outside the norms of society. Didn't help he self medicated w drugs & alcohol which always make mental issues much worse
My dad knew jaco and said towards the end nobody wanted to work with him because he could flip out . Also just touring alone can make you go crazy , having to travel city from City to City and all you see is hotel , venue , highway. Throw in drugs and mental illness and that's bound to go wrong lol .
I was fortunate to see Jaco on the 'Word of Mouth' tour in Seattle at the Univ of Washington. It was the last date on the tour and also happened to be Jaco's birthday that day. The promoter brought in a large white birthday cake after the show and instead of eating it Jaco grabbed handfuls of the cake and threw pieces all over the dressing room hitting band members like Stern and Kenwood and everybody else in the room including myself I left that frosting stain on my jacket for months! As a bassist seeing him from the front row was life-changing for me. I thought Stanley Clarke was the shit but JACO was beyond every other bassist on the planet Earth!
Jaco had tremendous charisma and a phenomenal stage presence, and could play some bass, but was he REALLY beyond Stanley Clarke as a bassist, I don’t think so. I saw them both live several times during the height of their playing career. Stanley could play rings around Jaco. I think we often confuse or over state Jaco’s stage charisma with playing sometimes.
it's beautiful and sad at the same time to see that Jaco was in a quite good shape here. thanks a lot Brian for having tried to save him. i miss him a lot.
Sure we've all seen early Jaco, the weather report stuff, but this... this is the sauce. He was just in between stages of his life, playing whatever he wanted and getting away with it. 83-84', man, not the best time for him, but the artistry was immeasurable.
He was bipolar. He was alone and separated from his wife and sons. He went to a club, got into an altercation with the club bouncer and the guy killed Jaco. He didn't die from substance abuse. He might have had a chance today. New meds and therapies help manage the illness. Most important is a support structure. Possibly if his wife had understood his illness she could have helped him. Similar thing happened to Van Gogh.
The man with his own hands created two families and had two homes that he wasn't even allowed to live in anymore when he got sick. There is no excuse for him to have been homeless. America had the wonderful opportunity to support (monetarily) the Jaco's , Miles, Birds, Shawn Lane's of the world, but they couldn't support them because they are related to jazz.
... although he was nearly the end, he was still terrific... I miss him a lot... the last genius of the 20th century... so sad... The greatest ever... ❤️😘
Sorely missed, Jaco you will never be forgotten. One can only wonder how much more you would have evolved musically. To this day many emulate you, but none can be you. You had opened the door to many a soloing bassist.
There are 2 bass players future bass players will always go back and listen to 50 years from now. One is Jaco and the other is Larry Graham. They both changed the way the bass was played Is why I say that. I did get to see him once. It wasn't the best show but I was happy to see him play live!!
For those who know, this was a difficult time for Jaco, as it was for his family, friends and admirers. He was both day and night in 1985 and 1986; you saw moments as brilliant as the sun, and moments as dark as the darkest night. I remember when I saw him at Washington Square Park one afternoon in New York, and I wondered if it was really him. He was listening to a guitar player and a saxophone player who were playing jazz, and I was watching as he began to tell the two musicians that he was Jaco Pastorius. He told them that if they were willing to wait, he would go home and get his bass. I realized it was actually him and yet it was hard to believe, because he had no shirt and no shoes and was using a piece of rope for a belt. As I said, this was a difficult time for him and everyone who loved him. I still find it tragic that more could not have been done for him to get the help that he needed.
I had the only two opportunities of my life to see him playing with WR in the Rio-Monterey Jazz Festival in my city, Rio de Janeiro..I'll never forget that moments..
thank you so much bro there was a time when I could kill for finding this kind of videos of The Master.... I remember 15 years ago trying to complete my Pastorius colection in the internet and I coudnt find these giggs.... ♥♥♥♥
Makes you wonder how many in that supper club crowd were talking over the band and how many in the crowd were tuned-in to sounds and rhythms soon never to be heard again by them... Thanks for the post effort.
I saw one of his last shows at an old club in Manhattan called 7th avenue South. I used to see Jaco walking around the village when he was not doing well and wanted to do something for him because I idolized his playing and learned so much from him. I was too young at the time and could not believe what was happening to him because my sister suffered from the same problem at the same time, and the meds and facilities were horrific. We have come a long way, but it is still the worst treatment program in the world.. we just do not understand the brain.....
i remember those days . word was out he wasnt doing well .these are cool clips .Brian melvin and jon davis did their best and there are volumes of vhs tapes from their tours with him .
Daniel I worked in probably at the time was one of the best psychiatric hospitals for 30 years. The chances that you could have gotten his attention and helped him was very slim. In the best circumstances I.e, best insurance, best hospital, great therapist, latest medication, afflicted person is ready for help, and that he would believe you wanted to help.... chances very, very slim. Your kindness shows. 🙏
Clear-headed and focused... I'm guessing this was after hospitalization, during a time when he took his meds. He also looks good physically here - "younger" and thinner than a year before.
20 years ago thought I was a badass..could play Marcus stuff, Fleas stuff, Larry’s stuff..my English teacher said “you ever heard of Jaco?” Nah. Never heard of the dude. He gave me a CD. Thee CD. Donna Lee was the first song. And for 20 years been chasing JP...the best. Period. There’s him and then there’s everyone else.
This seems to be the period of time shortly after he got out of the Mental Health Facility and was actually compliant with his meds. He is very clear-headed, focused, and earnest in this clip. Beautiful rendition of America at the end.
The harsh reality of the music gig is that you are an entertainer. At it's worst case, you are nothing more than a fry cook which is totally replaceable. At some point, if you are good (and lucky) enough, you become the attraction and you call the shots. But still that is a struggle. So many great artists lives are lived in torment and squalor,. It doesn't speak well for use as a society. I suppose with social media these days, a person with a level of talent can find a level of appreciation without having to struggle too much to get their music heard. And if they are good enough, things WILL happen. And so we're here listening to Jaco on social media and his is no longer with us. R.I.P.
It is a sad reality that the artists that move their medium the furthest often suffer from what we believe to be 'mental disorders'. A curse and a blessing I suppose but it's hard to listen to the genius of this man and not favor the 'blessing' side of the equation. Who knows what Jaco thought about it? What we are left with is an astounding collection of material from a man that single handedly re-wrote the history of an already, well established instrument. We lost him too early but we were so damned lucky to have him.
It's the same, Jaco already had had another's flights. Your mental situation and your alcoholism....your death was near ....Havan or another...or an accident.....he was absolutly crazy in 1986.. God bless Jaco
...i saw Jaco playing with Weather Report many times when they visited the UK -what an amazing musician, but I also saw him after he left the band trying to talk his way into a gig, a situation that could have turned ugly when he realised he wasn't getting anywhere, luckily on that occasion someone behind the security line recognised him and they let him in...a few years later I was in an internet chat room with people discussing the whole 'jazz-fusion' era when the conversation turned to Jaco, many 'disappointing' views were expressed -he certainly was a controversial figure, usual, things you hear 'he was a junky' - 'his ego was over the top' etc but in that chat room one of his daughters spoke about him, with the sadness you would expect but she also spoke about him being undiagnosed bi-polar, something she also suffered with, and how he didn't get any support, who knows if he had a been a little better managed how much more he might have done...RIP JP - i miss your playing...
Thank you so much for this. Now I know that in 1986 he was still able to crank out the teen town groove. Hope he is playing in heaven. RIP. BTW I seem to see frets on his bass?
My favorite clips of him....from 12:00 on...pure brilliance that no other electric bass player at the time could match. Even now...the ideas and technique are hard to beat! No popping...no thumb slapping. Just pure old school right hand.
He had a great chance to make a miraculous comeback but he couldn't escape the demons. They caught with him the next year. But he clearly regained his chops during this time period and was sounding great. For some reason, the Lord always takes the most brilliant and gifted musicians first.
It seems clear to me where Carlos Santana inspired himself to make Soul Sacrifice /oye como va/ . Which I love . Genius inspiring genius. Jaco always said he loved Paul Mc Cartney bass lines and Hendrix obviously. FUNtastic ♥️♥️
Terrible the last four years of his life on a decline like this. He didn't deserve for it to end that way. From Weather Report, Pat Metheny and Joni Mitchell to this. Just a misfit genius who fell pray to the insanity of substances.
INCREIBLE... El genio mas grande del bajo , cada nota tiene significado .. tal vez ese sea el motivo por el que adoramos lo de antes? Jaco, Zeppelin.. Beatles, etc..
Eye was born THIS YEAR OF *86 and He is MY FAVORITE BASS LINE OF ALL TIME 😮...what happened in *86? 😮 BESIDES OUT OF THIS WORLD TONES?? 🤔 (Comments OPEN for historians of 1986)
I saw Jaco often in the village, as I shared a practice space with Kennwood. I didn't understand his symptoms then. I thought it was drug abuse. Today I have a clear concept about musical ability and disfunctionality, as the two go together-always. There is a genetic, a physiological and a cybernetic part to the problem, which is basically a problem in dealing with gravity. Unfortunately it is still abig mistery and all "these "space-cadets" will be treated for something they do not have...
Stephan Sieber & Signs: Interesting assertion about musical ability and disfunctionality, related to gens, physiology and GRAVITY!!! Could you provide more info -some links or sources- about it?
I can give you some clues. Basically it is based on the question, why and for what purpose music has evolved.Only the human species has developed music (fish,birds and other might have developed a sound based language...).My conclusion is,that it is related to bipedal movement and the anatomical and neurological challenges that go with this. Schillinger stated that music has a "kybernetic quality" and he was right, as music's primarirly quality is tension and tension release . The musical release has a correspondance in the human body. This involves ears (sacculus) www.sscnet.ucla.edu/comm/steen/cogweb/ep/Sacculus.html, but also through the body's structure.The genetic map for the "musical subtype" might look like this : discovermagazine.com/2009/jan/052, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627312000992 "AVPR1a has been linked to anxiety and depression, and the connection between musical creativity and these traits is well known. Taken together, this suggests a role for AVPR1a as part of a putative genetic basis for both creativity and the artistic temperament. Linking genetic polymorphisms to personality variables is an area of active research. Data from these investigations should be brought to bear on the question of identifying candidate genes for musicality to the extent that those personality variables are discovered to be linked to the musical phenotype." The symptoms follow the clinical signs described by Da Cunha/Da Silva as the Postural Deficency Syndrom (connected to dyslexia...) www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3571839 If you do a analysis of musicians body axis, you will find patterns of disturbed body axis (as in Jaco's case..).This causes constant postural stress & wrong senso- motorical information; therapy structural integration (rolfing..as described by french Hubert Goddard "tonic function" , Iyhengar Yoga or similar physiologcal concepts based on myofascial structures, needs a holistic approach, the shrink doesn't help...(:
I was so confused ,and later pissed , when I first saw Jaco performances. I thought to myself " now you have to bleeping go in a whole new direction " LOL
13.05 Third Stone from the Sun by Jimi........I listen to it since 1970 when I was 11..oh my God only in this moment I have realized that the third stone from the sun is planet Earth.....
I saw Joe Zawinul in 1986 touring his 'Di-a-lects' solo album. At one point he raises his left hand and says "I would like to introduce the bass player".
I try to remember him as that new bass player hardly anyone heard of on his first tour with Weather Report and how well he played. With all the friends and respect Jaco had (and family members too) I don't understand why those people were not able to get him the help he needed for his mental disorder and addiction. Maybe he was very stubborn and refused to get help. When he was homeless living in Washington Square Park, a friend of mine living in Manhattan saw him many times and give him some money and he said Jaco usually seemed cheerful too. So he ends up dead in an alley after two idiot bouncers beat him to death.
