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Jaco's other bass?
- Thread starter GodPlayedBass
- Start date
I think using the term “past his prime” is a gentle way of saying that at the time, he was well-situated within the downward spiral that was his life, unfortunately…
As a side and maybe pleasant note, dig this small derail: Bireli Lagrene is not only a hell of a guitar player, but a jawdropping bassplayer as well!!!
My luthier friend, David Segal, who owns NYBassWorks grew up with Jaco and they were close friends. He owns one of Jaco’s former Jazz Basses, pretty sure it’s a ‘62. I’ve played it. Great bass, natural (or stripped) w/o pickguard, with rosewood epoxied fingerboard, frets yanked. It’s been five years since I was there but pretty sure he said Jaco’s wife gave it to him. He also told me he “owned” Jaco’s two main basses for a while, back when Jaco was having some troubles. He apparently ran up a big bar tab and gave the owner his basses to settle it. David went in and paid the tab to get the basses back and returned them to Jaco after he was doing better and had squared with him. Saw some old photos of the two of them on the wall of his shop……NYBassWorks builds some nice modern takes on Fender classic designs. David is also a decent player and did a couple tours as bassist fir Blood, Sweat & Tears. …ANYWAY….Only chiming in because I think that is another Jaco Bass NOT previously mentioned. I also remember seeing one of his two main basses sitting in the front window of “We Buy Guitars” on the old 48th St “Music Row” in NYC. I think it was around 1980(?) It was right in front in the smaller window area to the right of the front door. I couldn’t believe it! Never met Jaco but I did know Alphonso Johnson because my late GF of 20 years was a Vigier endorser, as was Alphonso. She was Vigier’s ONLY woman endorser for 20 years, so a killer player. We’d hung with Alphonso over in Germany a few times, plus he would call when in NYC gigging for us to come hang. Great guy.
Yes, found it...but what type exactly? One from somewhere around 79 or 80 it seems....
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It's an RS 800 or 900!
Yep. Some model Roadster. I like the way those look and those had a pretty familiar neck shape.It's an RS 800 or 900!
All too few bassists know that Jaco became acquainted with Johnny Mørch's famous 5-string fretless basses as early as 1976 and immediately afterwards bought one for himself. Wearing bare toes and a pair of worn-out and drenched cowboy pants, Jaco himself appeared with a huge pile of banknotes at Thomas Puggaard's in the northern end of Copenhagen's Østerbro district. Because even though he was the bass hero above all, Jaco also had to pay for his custom-built 5-string.
It was bassist Michael Friis and guitarist Thomas Puggaard-Müller who made the first contacts when Jaco first came to Denmark with Weather Report. And it was Sofie Johannsen who took the immortal black-and-white photo of Jaco, when a few years later he was handed his new bass in Jazzklub Montmartre in Nørregade, where Weather Report rehearsed.
Jaco was crazy happy with his new bass and used it frequently as a working tool when he recorded tracks with his own music in his own Florida home and with Greek-American Peter Yanillos as sound engineer. Yanillos drove his large college bus into the tight cottage area of Deerfield Beach near Ft. Lauderdale, and then Jaco could lay out dozens of tracks with voices he wanted to include on his future recordings – among others. the basic tracks of Holliday for Pans.
The years passed and, as many know, Jaco's later life was not exactly a play. Due to marital problems and several very diverse musical and human challenges (including manic depression, anxiety, galloping megalomania and several parallel relationships), Jaco had periodically sought residence alternately in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and even in hollow trees in a public park in Ft. Lauderdale. After several heated arguments with his second wife Ingrid, with whom he had fathered twins, Ingrid filed for divorce, and now the ways were still difficult for poor Jaco, who, despite his status and membership with Weather Report, had to make do with an annual income of just $20,000. At this time, Jaco was still fairly realistic about his ownb status, so he took some periods of treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction - when he wasn't escaping from his self-created nightmare and completely freaking out in the company of bums, criminals and other divided artistic souls...
At this late stage, Jaco could not, at all, see his life and his finances. This had the unfortunate consequence that several of the storage garages he had previously rented from his neighbors in Deerfield Beach were terminated and emptied. Jaco's wife Ingrid had a hard enough time feeding herself and the twins, so she had no way of paying the rent on Jaco's many small "stores" of precious instruments, recording equipment and other trinkets. So when the landlords couldn't get their rent paid, they chose to sell out of Jaco's treasures instead of getting compensation from Ingrid. And in several cases, Jaco's belongings were simply dumped on the streets of Deerfield Beach, where other drug addicts and organized gangs of thieves made quick work of the Pastorius' belongings.
In this period around the mid-eighties, Jaco's 5-string Mørch disappeared under somewhat mysterious circumstances. However, no longer than that it later appeared as a "collectors' item" and was for sale in several places and under several seller names.
Long after Jaco's death, Johnny Mørch received several inquiries via letters and emails from a guy named Curt Purplebaugh, who had allegedly been offered to buy the bass. When Purplebaugh learned through Johnny Mørch and the undersigned (Peter Rahbek) that the bass was in fact Jaco's, he - apparently for speculative purposes - offered Ingrid money as a kind of compensation for the inconvenience the Pastorius family had to suffer now that he intended to sell the bass. Ingrid accepted the donation, but never received any compensation. In return, Jaco's 5-string Mørch was sold on through several stud dealers.
Through the internet, Johnnny Mørch and the undersigned managed to make contact with the current owner, blues bassist Daniel Stanton from San Francisco. He obviously cannot dream of selling the old and noble instrument, but uses it both live and on various recordings. So the myth of the missing instrument has in a way ended now that Ingrid is also dead and gone. According to Dan Stanton, the bass is alive and playing amazingly well. He says that it is as if the instrument plays by itself – and delivers exactly the sound that the great masters, Johnny Mørch and Jaco Pastorius were looking for; an ideal cross between an electric bass and a real double bass – with saturated tone and long, lively sustain…
This Bass is from same period as Jaco's Mørch Bass/ same model
It was bassist Michael Friis and guitarist Thomas Puggaard-Müller who made the first contacts when Jaco first came to Denmark with Weather Report. And it was Sofie Johannsen who took the immortal black-and-white photo of Jaco, when a few years later he was handed his new bass in Jazzklub Montmartre in Nørregade, where Weather Report rehearsed.
Jaco was crazy happy with his new bass and used it frequently as a working tool when he recorded tracks with his own music in his own Florida home and with Greek-American Peter Yanillos as sound engineer. Yanillos drove his large college bus into the tight cottage area of Deerfield Beach near Ft. Lauderdale, and then Jaco could lay out dozens of tracks with voices he wanted to include on his future recordings – among others. the basic tracks of Holliday for Pans.
The years passed and, as many know, Jaco's later life was not exactly a play. Due to marital problems and several very diverse musical and human challenges (including manic depression, anxiety, galloping megalomania and several parallel relationships), Jaco had periodically sought residence alternately in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and even in hollow trees in a public park in Ft. Lauderdale. After several heated arguments with his second wife Ingrid, with whom he had fathered twins, Ingrid filed for divorce, and now the ways were still difficult for poor Jaco, who, despite his status and membership with Weather Report, had to make do with an annual income of just $20,000. At this time, Jaco was still fairly realistic about his ownb status, so he took some periods of treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction - when he wasn't escaping from his self-created nightmare and completely freaking out in the company of bums, criminals and other divided artistic souls...
At this late stage, Jaco could not, at all, see his life and his finances. This had the unfortunate consequence that several of the storage garages he had previously rented from his neighbors in Deerfield Beach were terminated and emptied. Jaco's wife Ingrid had a hard enough time feeding herself and the twins, so she had no way of paying the rent on Jaco's many small "stores" of precious instruments, recording equipment and other trinkets. So when the landlords couldn't get their rent paid, they chose to sell out of Jaco's treasures instead of getting compensation from Ingrid. And in several cases, Jaco's belongings were simply dumped on the streets of Deerfield Beach, where other drug addicts and organized gangs of thieves made quick work of the Pastorius' belongings.
In this period around the mid-eighties, Jaco's 5-string Mørch disappeared under somewhat mysterious circumstances. However, no longer than that it later appeared as a "collectors' item" and was for sale in several places and under several seller names.
Long after Jaco's death, Johnny Mørch received several inquiries via letters and emails from a guy named Curt Purplebaugh, who had allegedly been offered to buy the bass. When Purplebaugh learned through Johnny Mørch and the undersigned (Peter Rahbek) that the bass was in fact Jaco's, he - apparently for speculative purposes - offered Ingrid money as a kind of compensation for the inconvenience the Pastorius family had to suffer now that he intended to sell the bass. Ingrid accepted the donation, but never received any compensation. In return, Jaco's 5-string Mørch was sold on through several stud dealers.
Through the internet, Johnnny Mørch and the undersigned managed to make contact with the current owner, blues bassist Daniel Stanton from San Francisco. He obviously cannot dream of selling the old and noble instrument, but uses it both live and on various recordings. So the myth of the missing instrument has in a way ended now that Ingrid is also dead and gone. According to Dan Stanton, the bass is alive and playing amazingly well. He says that it is as if the instrument plays by itself – and delivers exactly the sound that the great masters, Johnny Mørch and Jaco Pastorius were looking for; an ideal cross between an electric bass and a real double bass – with saturated tone and long, lively sustain…
I know, It's ritten by a Dane, its not AI-generated, it's just english ritten, by a Dane, if you go to Mørch Guitars, you can chose english, and cruice the site, one cool thing about Mørch, is that even in the 70's he made B-strings "tighter than G-Strings
truly amazing bass Luthier, still alive, but only doing a few custom job's a year
Alphonso with Weather Report, Floria Purim, and George Duke was spectacular in every sense of the word I was present at a Weather Report Concert in Cincinnati Ohio where the power blew so Joe and Wayne did Duos on Grand Piano and Soprano Sax.Jaco to my knowledge never had a “endorsement agreement” with Fender or any other of the basses he owned. Those were not as common as they are now. If memory serves me Stanley Clarke bouth his first Alembic with his own money.You can hear it, or at least Icould My fretless guys were Percy Johns and Alphonso Johnson. I was playing my de-fretted 62 P, you know the one
So I got a fretted jazz as I was playing more rock and wanted that sound. So, I can hear it, almost feel it
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