Is This The Greatest Jaco Pastorius Photo Ever?
On July 2nd 1982, my bassist brother and I went to check out Jaco Pastorius and his Word of Mouth Sextet at the Ontario Place Forum. It featured a revolving stage, so there were no bad seats. (We had especially great ones as you can see.) The band was ridiculous Peter Erskine on drums, Don Alias on congas, Randy Brecker on trumpet, Bob Mintzer on tenor sax & bass clarinet and Othello Molineaux on steel pan. While Jaco is arguably the greatest, and most famous, electric bassist of all time, each of these guys was in the same league. My brother was a massive fan of Pastorius’ Weather Report work. Still is.
Best Photo Of Jaco?
If you are interested in prints from this show, let me know. As of August 2024 I will have a few Jaco Pastorius prints available.
Jaco arrived a bit late, he came out in his civvies and did a sound check. He gave the audience a bit of shit, asking us if any of us had taken a plane before. (Bit of foreshadowing of the issues which eventually killed him.) He then went off, got changed and came back and did an incredible show. At the end he did Third Stone From the Sun by Jimi Hendrix, putting his bass on the floor and letting it feedback while his did somersaults over it. There is only a small chunk of this show on video. (Yes, that’s my photo.)
I shot a roll of film, which I have literally never seen every frame of. About 20 years ago my Jaco-freak brother had some lo-res scans done. In time I put a couple of these online and they have been ‘borrowed’ and posted online like mad ever since. Like here, and here and here etc. While at first I was a little peeved at having my photo ‘borrowed’, I got enough feedback to realize this might be the greatest Jaco photo of all time.
It has the bass, the mind and flow. It also has perfect backlight. And those fingers! If you think there is a better Jaco Pastorius photo, please let me know! Happy to withdraw my claim if I agree!
These photos are from those ancient lo-res grainy scans. I heavily watermark them as they are mine, and they aren’t really good enough scans to properly display.
The following night, Jaco Pastorius played the Montreal Jazz Festival, which was videotaped and remains one of the greatest documents of this band.
Stay tuned though, completely randomly I have a crazy Jaco Pastorius story that has never been told.
For six years in the 1990s I lived in Phnom Penh Cambodia, where I worked at The Cambodia Daily newspaper. In 1995 this kid Alex showed up in town and opened a music bar in an old shophouse near the corner of St. 178 & Norodom Blvd. He was a music freak and brought maybe 1000 cassettes with him. It was the best music bar in town by far. During the coup d’etat in July 1997, when the city was a complete warzone for three days, his neighbours used the chaos to break into his bar and steal everything, including his music collection. That was the end of that bar.
Alex grew up on the Lower East Side of New York City. One day around ‘85 Alex and some friends were shooting hoops at a public basketball court somewhere near Washington Square. This crazy musician carrying a bass case showed up on the court and started screaming at the kids, took his bass out and was swinging it around at them, “but mostly at himself” according to Alex.
After a bit of this Jaco Pastorius ran over and stuffed the bass, neck first, into a NYC trashcan and ran away.
Alex was, I think, 13 years old, but already well into music. He knew this guy was a famous musician and he was in trouble. (This corresponds to the time Jaco Pastorius was living on the streets on NYC, with only his bass and some clothes in the case.) Alex grabbed the bass, put it in the case and literally followed Jaco around town for three hours, until he came down enough from his episode to realize this kid was trying to give him his bass back. He took it, and that’s the end of the story.
This is a great ‘Jaco Pastorius on stage’ moment, but the photo has issues with the focus and exposure. (IMO)
This is by far my favourite Jaco portrait.
