Bass Player: Jaco Pastorius

The 1976 Joni Mitchell album ‘Hejira’ appeared at around the same time as the eponymous ‘Jaco’ LP and, given the nature of Mitchell’s audience when viewed against Jaco’s own, most people heard Jaco’s contributions to this album long before they heard his solo albums. The impact cannot be overstated and, for young players today, it is difficult to imagine how much of a game changer this was, rather like the impact of Hendrix in the early 70s had for guitar players.

There are many tracks on the LP that feature Jaco’s signature sound (one of several); ‘Coyote’, ‘Hejira’, ‘Black Crow’ sand the subject of this transcription, ‘Refuge Of The Road’. The transcription shows the genius of Pastorius. There is barely a single bar that repeats and the fretless counterpoint to Mitchell’s lyrics is some of the most musicial playing Jaco every did. The tune also features a ‘theme’ that features Jaco’s fretless but the interesting thing is that the theme does not repeat but is rather hinted at. Stunning musiciality. All very playable and not requiring of virtuosos technique. It is important to watch the note lengths.