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1978
Soon after Jaco moved into my small apartment with large yard
(http://www.jacop.net/pans.html), he noticed this particular bird song
coming around....it had a specific melody he felt he had not heard before,
but strangely enough could never spot the melody-maker, however much
we tried. He then went on a mission to record it on his small tape recorder,
hoping to eventually find out what bird was singing this song.
Coincidentally, soon thereafter we were watching a show on television
one night and there was a celebrated ornithologist featured who resided
in California, so Jaco took down his name to call information for a number.
He reached the specialist who in turn informed him of a very well respected
ornithologist in Tallahassee at the Museum of Florida History.
Jaco called him and played the warble of the bird over the phone, which
surprisingly excited the man who immediately identified the song belonging
to a Black Breasted Yellow Oriole. He said he has been collecting bird
songs for years, even has a couple of LPs released of just birdsongs,
as well as one of frog sounds, but was never able to get one of
the elusive Yellow Oriole Jaco played for him over the phone.
At that time I was not yet familiar with the music business, nor really
Jaco's business, but something was troubling him...it seemed that there
were expectations by others he was needing to avoid, so the next day he
told me he wanted to get out of town, and asked if I was willing to drive
North and see what happens...an impulsive trip with no real plan except
to eventually go to the Tallahassee Museum, and bring the tape.
It felt free, and relaxing to just go, and drive wherever the path would
lead us, which included a swim in Florida's natural springs with crystal
clear waters and underwater caves. (http://www.floridasprings.org/)
It was during this trip that he decided he wanted to go camping on Cumberland
Island (http://www.cviog.uga.edu/Projects/gainfo/cumberland/), a place he
as a kid had read about in a National Geographic. After visiting the museum
spending a whole day with the ornithologist, we drove to Jacksonville's
K-Mart and bought camping gear, on the way to St. Mary's, Georgia from
where we took a ferry to Cumberland. The photo with Jaco by the fire
on the First Page of this site, as well as the photo where he is
casting the net to catch shrimp were taken at this island.
Ten days after leaving we returned only to find out that the
band (WR) and some executives had been frantically looking
for him, for he had missed rehearsals in California.
::::Portrait Of Tracy::::
Tracy tells how it was named:
"I'll tell you the background of that title. You are probably all bass players and whether
you realize it or not, it is not always the most enthralling thing in the world to listen
to a bassplayer practice - riffs - scales - all that stuff. It never bothered me at all,
but to say it was engrossing would be pushing it. Well, one day Jaco started practicing a
new song and it was like nothing else I had ever heard him practice. It was so different
and hauntingly beautiful. It got so that everytime I went to take a bath I would holler
to him, "Jaco, play my bathtub melody!" because it made me feel so relaxed. So for months
that is how it was referred to between us - the bathtub melody. I did not know until the day
his first album came out and saw it that he had called it "Portrait of Tracy". So to say I was
the inspiration for it may be an exageration but thank you. Years later people who knew us
knew he was pissed at me whenever he started playing it with that fricking fuzz tone on!"
::::Birth of Crisis::::
About a year before recording Crisis, Jaco was at Modern Music on Oakland Park Blvd.,
checking out a new Roland effects system (wish I could remember what it was). When he
tried it out, this wonderful bass line came up, looping, so he asked for a blank casette
to dump it on and take home.
During the recording of Crisis, mostly done at home using Peter Yianilos' studio, an
orange bus parked in our driveway, Jaco would have each musician record with the bass
groove independent from hearing what others had already laid down on the Crisis track,
but he would once in a while reach over to a knob on the board, and bring up a track to
get a musical reaction from the artist recording on the tune at the time. So great!!
::::Mowgli Music::::
Jaco named one of his publishing companies Mowgli Music. Mowgli is the character
from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. He very much related with Mowgli, as Jaco's
brother Gregory told me, Jaco use to go from tree to tree as a method of reaching
school. He would climb up a tree and then go from the branches
of that tree to the branches of the next tree and so forth.
Like Mowgli, Jaco wanted to be with nature, barefoot, mostly wearing close
to nothing...daring and fearless...always in love ... having a hard time
dealing with social restrictions...yet dedicated, loyal, and precise,
needed in the 'concrete' jungle to survive and be free...
B A C K
Email: JacoFamilySite@aol.com
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