Jaco Pastorius is the living embodiment of spontaneous combustion, an artist who rose to massive prominence in the 1970’s backed by his prodigious bass playing capabilities before flaming out spectacularly under the weight of mental issues brought on by massive drug use in the 80’s which led to homelessness and a drug-induced bar fight that ended his life at the age of 35 years old. Jaco Pastorius is his debut solo album and features all of the landmark techniques that made him such a virtuosic talent and such a mythical player in the history of bass players. Artificial harmonics, ghost notes, octaves, slap bass, phrasing that sounds otherworldly– it’s all here in spades. There’s so much depth and diversity in his playing (as my bandmates from Kindergarten Cartel said “Absolute monster. The roodiest doodiest cowboy in the wild wild west”) that it becomes almost transcendent to listen to his bars as the spill out of him. One of the best to ever do it in a life that ended tragically too soon.
Standout Songs: “Donna Lee”, “Come On, Come Over”, “Okonkole y Trompa”, “Portrait of Tracy”
