Jaco Pastorius

We were listening to Joni Mitchell's "Hejira" in class today, from the album of the same name. Joni, the archtypical confessional singer-songwriter, was venturing out of her comfort zone, and into the realm of jazz. (And, god bless her, she's kept on this road of growth and experimentation her whole life long.)

A big part of the sound on that LP was Jaco Pastorius's bass.

Jaco was something of a prodigy: only twenty-five at the time, had only just recorded his first album. (Read more about him here. Listen to a remembrance on NPR here. ANd here, a message board for "Jaco Stories".) He went on to a brilliant -- but brief -- career, short-circuited by alcohol, drugs, and mental illness. (How come nobody's made a movie about this -- it's the classic tortured artist motif?)

His life ended tragically. After having snuck on stage at a Carlos Santana concert (and being escorted off), he went to a local bar where he got into an altercation with a bouncer, who apparently beat him to death. This fact I cannot verify, but it's reported that after he was removed, brain-dead, from life-support systems -- that his heart beat on for three hours.