Could Jaco read?

[odin70]

Yes, Jaco could read. He had me try to read stuff from the Dotzauer Cello Method from our first private lesson at the University of Miami during the one and only semester he taught there. He could read anything from it perfectly, which he took pride in showing me that he could do. Pretty amazing.

...and your cv is pretty damned impressive.

 

[JimK]

He learned to read while on the road with Wayne Cochran and the CC riders (early 70's), taught by Charlie Brent mostly.

Yes, I just re-visited some of Milkowski's book...on pp, 54-55, there are examples of 2ea Jaco tunes ("Las Olas" & "71+") transcribed in his own handwriting.
Also, Bob Moses talks about the time Metheny called "All The Things You Area"...Jaco said he did not know the tune & asked for a chart.

For the big band arrangements Jaco used a copyist/arranger named Larry Warrilow. Larry's job was basically a lot of assembly. Jaco would write down the ideas and tell Larry where they went. Sometimes Larry would fill in small gaps. Jaco would say something like, "the trumpets do this here against the woodwinds" and he would write it out. Jaco was still touring with Weather Report when he was putting together the big band stuff so a lot of it was mailed sheets, scraps of paper and phone calls to Larry. Of course Jaco wrote out a lot of the meat of the arrangements as well.

Thanks...for reminding me. I could not put my fingers on his copyist's name.

 

[JimK]

...and on a tangent-
I was also re-reading an old Guitar Player interview with Les Paul.
When asked if he had all those lines & arrangements written out...Paul said neither he nor Mary could not read music. Everything was memory.