my story about meeting Jaco Pastorius

[GONZO-X]

once upon a time, around 1982, i think, at a club in deerfield beach, florida, i was playing a top 40 gig, and this bum off the street wandered in the club.....

i say bum because, he was wearing hole-y jeans, no shoes, and a pancho. and his hair was braided funny, and he looked demented.

but he came in, and stood at the edge of the stage, in front of each of the band members one at a time, and stared at them.
when he got to me, i just smiled and played as good as i could, and this guy stood there for the longest time, and it finally started to creep me out.

at the same time, i thought i recognized him, and couldn't imagine from where.

he watched our bass player for a long time........... we had a killer bass player, and he played a nice Alembic, and this seemed to really peak the interest of this bum........

so by now, i'm staring at the guy, sensing that he is in fact, not a bum, but probably a player....

so we finish the set, and the bum comes to me and says "hey, really like your playing. my name's Jaco."

i was stunned.

it dawned on me, that this was jaco pastorius, and that's why i recognized him, cuz i had his entire catalog in my cassette bag.........

i said " i thought i recognized you, i'm a big fan, let me buy you a drink!"

so we saunter off to the side bar, by ourselves, i order 2 rum and cokes, and he proceeds to tell me about his latest project........

"yeah, i just finished this album that's going to turn the jazz world on it's fuckin' ear. It's called "Word of Mouth""....................

then he tells me about his wonderful latest new toy, a prophet 5 synthesizer (one of which my band just happened to have), and how he was all into trying to program new unheard sounds into it, and i guess we talked for the entire break (30 minutes.......)

after which, i invited him to sit in with the band, to play bass, but he said, "no, i don't care about the bass right now, but i'd love to play your prophet"......

which, of course, the keyboardist said "sure", and we let the club owner know we had a guest, and he promptly told us he wasn't paying us to jam, so we played Loverboy's "Turn me loose" with Jaco Pastorius on keys.

[Henri Devill]

Cool story!Was he down there to record?

Don

[GONZO-X]

he lived in lauderdale, when he wasn't roaming the streets.....

[Toki987]

Thats really cool. I'm `sure it impacted the band quite a bit.

[RedHeffer]

That's a really cool story. I've been getting into Jaco Pastorius a lot recently... reading up on him and stuff. I wish I had the opportunity to meet him.

[eyeslikefire]

Privileged, you were.

[GONZO-X]

the more you read up on him, the more you'll find out how mentally unstable the guy was.

that night i met him, he was so lucid, and so into his music vibe.

i saw him again, about 6 months later, he was playing on a cymbal on stage in a sleazy bar, his eyes were big black discs.

[Guernica]

GREAT story man!!!
I can totally picture that. I too am a big fan, I know a little about his history..... but it seems there really isnt a whole lot out on him personally. ...thanks for that.

I would have payed a lotta dough to have seen that loverboy cover.
g

[GONZO-X]

http://www.jacopastorius.com/

[Al Sim]

...is that behavior a little beyond that described by GONZO-X at the top of this thread may have gotten Pastorius killed. I went to college at NYU and the story I heard, from someone who claimed to have seen him do this, was that Pastorius had started harrassing a band he didn't like, showing up at their gigs and staring at them, getting onstage and unplugging the bass player, and generally wearing out his welcome. One night it turned violent, he was thrown out of the club, and the next morning he was found beaten to death in a doorway. It was assumed by the teller of this story, and he said by others as well, that Pastorious had hung around till the band finished their gig and started in on them again. May well be apocryphal, but that's the story I heard, and it sure has stayed with me.

[GONZO-X]

http://www.aic.se/basslob/jaco/article.html
an excerpt:

In the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, September 12, Jaco
Pastorius had appeared at the front door of the Midnight Bottle
Club, a sleazy after-hours joint in a shopping complex in Wilton
Manor, a bland suburb of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He had been
barred from the members-only club, perhaps for previous incidents
of drunken behaviour, but this night he was determined to get in.
When Jaco was refused entry he apparently tried to kick down the
front door. This did not go down well with the club's manager, Luc
Havan. Several vicious karate chops to the head later, the onetime
greatest bass player in the world lay face down in a pool of blood,
his skull fractured, one eye ruptured, nearly every bone in his face
shattered. When police arrived at the scene, Havan said that Jaco
"fell down." The district attorney would later conclude,

"No way. He was beaten." Havan was arrested five days later and
charged with aggravated battery. He posted a $5,000 bond and was
later released. Meanwhile, Jaco lingered in a coma at the Broward
General Medical Center. Word was that he'd be paralyzed on one
side of his body if he was able to pull out of it. And yet, there was
still hope. Family members reported that Jaco was responding to
commands..."Wiggle your toe," "Squeeze my finger." Doctors even
speculated that he might be sitting up and drinking from a cup in a
matter of days. The status of his condition was changed from
critical to serious.
Then quite unexpectedly, on the evening of Saturday, September
19, a blood vessel burst in Jaco's brain. His entire right side was
gone, along with the basic left-brain cognitive functions of
understanding, logic, reasoning.
By Sunday there was zero brain activity, yet he lingered on. On
Monday they removed Jaco from the respirator. He stopped
breathing but his heart continued to pump (miraculously) for
another three hours. Jaco's father Jack, a journeyman jazz drummer
and singer all his life, cradled Jaco in his arms and crooned "Watch
What Happens" as the final beats ticked off:

Let someone start believing in you
Let him hold out his hand
Let him touch you and
Watch what happens

At 9:25 p.m., Jaco Pastorius died. He was 35.

[Al Sim]

So all that was true in the story I heard was the violence and a nightclub.