Talk:Jaco Pastorius

Inventing Fretless Bass?
The section "Stage presence and bass techniques" has the line, "He played an electric bass from which he had removed the frets, essentially inventing the fretless bass." The Bass Guitar article pretty clearly states that there were fretless basses as early as 1961. So, Jaco didn't invent fretless basses. 

I think the "inventing" part should be taken out, or possibly changed to "independently inventing," or calling it a multiple discovery. 

If anyone else agrees, I'd be glad to make the edit. Arek~enwiki (talk) 14:32, 19 January 2018 (UTC) Vmavanti (talk) 20:49, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I'll take a look.

The phrasing "profoundly developed and expanded the fretless electric bass tonal pallet" would probably be received with broad agreement by those knowledgable in the field. Jaco certainly had seen the many extant examples of fretless electric basses. Rainbow-five (talk) 20:01, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Probably. It's always tough to say with certainty who invented what. A cello is a fretless bass, right? The grow of bass guitar in jazz seems to correspond with the growth of jazz fusion and the "electrifying" of instruments that was widespread in the 1960s. Jaco Pastorius was in the right place at the right time. Vmavanti (talk) 21:59, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * In this case it really isn't that hard to say who 'invented' the fretless bass - the first player with any amount of profile to play the fretless bass was Bill Wyman - he really did remove the frets himself. This bass can be heard on many rolling stones hits. He did this in 1961. Ampeg released a commercial run of fretless scroll basses in the mid 1960s, and Fender had already released a fretless precision bass in 1970. So, Jaco was very very late to that party. There were enough jazz musicians already playing these instruments, that crediting this as a 'multiple discovery' makes no sense either. Dinobass (talk) 02:25, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The article calls into question if he defretted his bass or acquired it that way. At least two living people are on record saying they witnessed him defretting it. They were bandmates with the CC Riders during Jaco's 10-month tour with the band, and said he did it in a hotel room on tour. There are numerous accounts; the most accessible public one is on the Jaco: The Early Years compilation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.120.234.141 (talk) 17:50, 5 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Going back a bit: No, a cello is not a "fretless bass [guitar]". What are you talking about? Cellos are tuned differently, have a different range, are played with the instrument between the player's legs and usually with a bow. A cello sounds radically different and has a completely different musical and cultural history. You'd might as well call a peanut a fretless fish. (Yes, I picked this example completely randomly--just what nonsense popped into head, which is rather the point). A double bass, on the other hand, is like a fretless bass guitar (same tuning, range, and musical function in certain non-classical contexts) except that it isn't a guitar (it belongs to the violin family) and it isn't electric. TheScotch (talk) 18:50, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Family?
Jaco had a wife, Tracy(for whom “Portrait of Tracy” was named after) and several kids. I’m not sure how to properly add and source this info, but it should definitely be in the biography section. WesleyPacella (talk) 03:33, 22 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: SSC199 Hon
— Assignment last updated by Ctysick (talk) 18:44, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

b.o.d. replicas
I have two tokai "jaco" basses, which first appeared in their catalogue in 1981, while JP was still alive. fender's tribute was long after he died. anyone care to speculate as to why this might have been? also, rob trujillo has had the thing "restored" & it is unrecognisable. :-(

duncanrmi (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2023 (UTC)