Jaco Pastorius是一颗流星，70年代时闪烁着耀眼的光芒，80年代时悲剧性的陨落了。他用自己独创的无品电贝司，以惊人的演奏技巧和对音乐旋律的幻想，使贝司这门乐器挣脱在乐队中的附属位置，走到舞台的最前端，让人们首次感受到出自贝司的音乐魅力。他不仅是个有着华丽的演奏风格的爵士乐手，更是一个集作曲、编配和制作于一身的三重天才。他和另一位乐手Stanley Clarke可被称为是70年代在贝司演奏领域影响最重大的贝司手。
Jaco于1951年出生在美国的宾西法尼亚，八岁时随家迁移到Fort Lauderdale，以后就一直成长和生活在那里。幼年时的Jaco就喜爱上了R
by Richard S. Ginell
Jaco Pastorius was a meteor who blazed on to the scene in the 1970s, only to flame out tragically in the 1980s. With a brilliantly fleet technique and fertile melodic imagination, Pastorius made his fretless electric bass leap out from the depths of the rhythm section into the front line with fluid machine-gun-like passages that demanded attention. He also sported a strutting, dancing, flamboyant performing style and posed a further triple-threat as a talented composer, arranger and producer. He and Stanley Clarke were the towering influences on their instrument in the 1970s.
Born in Pennsylvania, Pastorius grew up in Fort Lauderdale, where he played with visiting R&B and pop acts while still a teenager and built a reputation as a local legend. Everything started to come together for him quickly once he started playing with another rookie fusionmeister, Pat Metheny, around 1974. By 1976, he had been invited to join Weather Report, where he remained until 1981, gradually becoming a third lead voice along with Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. Outside Weather Report, he found himself in constant demand as a sessionman and producer, playing on Joni Mitchell, Blood Sweat and Tears, Paul Bley, Bireli Lagrene and Ira Sullivan albums — and his first eponymous solo album for Epic in 1976 was hailed as a tour de force. From 1980 to 1984, he toured and recorded with his own band, the innovative Word of Mouth that fluctuated in size from a large combo to a big band.
Alas, Pastorius became overwhelmed by mental problems, exacerbated by drugs and alcohol in the mid-80s, leading to several embarrassing public incidents (one was a violent crack-up on-stage at the Hollywood Bowl in mid-set at the 1984 Playboy Jazz Festival). Such episodes made him a pariah in the music business and toward the end of his life, he had become a street person, reportedly sighted in drug-infested inner-city hangouts. He died in 1987 from a physical beating sustained while trying to break into the Midnight Club in Fort Lauderdale. Almost totally forgotten at the time of his death, Pastorius was immediately canonized afterwards (Marcus Miller wrote a tune Mr. Pastorius in his honor) — too late for him to have received therapy or help.