Jaco

[dimsonic]

 

[pipityri]

Τεράστιος. Το πρώτο και το Word Of Mouth είναι δισκάρες, πέρα από το παίξιμο του και το γράψιμο του για big band είναι φανταστικό. Χώρια αυτά που έκανε με Weather Report, Metheny, Stern κλπ Τραγική, κατά τ΄άλλα, φυσιογνωμία. Η βιογραφία του Bill Milkwoski-καταξιωμένος δημοσιογράφος και φίλος του-σου ραγίζει την καρδιά.

[Spyros Delta]

Να εισαι κιθαριστας 17 χρονων μεσα στην κ@βλα, να μελετας rory, blackmore, page, hendrix, van halen κλπ και ενας απο τους  αγαπημενους δισκους να ειναι το heavy weather που δεν εχει κιθαρα και δεν ειναι ροκ.

Επεξεργασμένο 9 Ιουνίου 2019 από Spyros Delta

[Yannis Methenitis]

Απίστευτο το πως κατάληξε ένας απο τους κορυφαίους μουσικούς που πέρασε ποτέ απο την Γη.

Διπολικός και “at-large person” που έψαχνε κάποιον να τον... αυτοκτονήσει. 

Παρακάτω περιγράφεται η τελευταία μέρα το Jaco. Η Terry που αναφέρεται ήταν η τελευταία φίλη του μετα και τον δεύτερο χωρισμό του. 

 

Παράθεση

He was just another bum bleeding to death in an alleyway at four o’clock in the morning. He lay motionless on the concrete, as if sleeping, his tangled shoulder-length hair ringed by a halo of blood. He lay there peacefully for a while, in the darkened alley in a strip shopping mall in Wilton Manors, Florida, on the morning of September 12, 1987. He was less than an eighth of a mile from a police station and only a few feet from the Midnight Bottle Club, the Bread of Life health food store and a religious supply store with a sign in its window: “God Loves You.”

When the police arrived, a woman from the bar was kneeling beside him, wiping the blood out of his mouth so he would not drown in it. She looked up and said, “Jaco’s hurt.” One officer bent down and massaged the man’s shoulders while the other looked for witnesses. Only the bar’s bouncer came forward. Luc Havan, 25, a Vietnamese refugee, said that the man had tried to kick in the bar’s door after he had been denied entrance because he was drunk and abusive. When the bouncer chased the man down the alley, the man threw a glancing blow at him. The bouncer shoved him and he fell backward, hitting his head on the concrete. That’s all there was to it, the bouncer said.

The police report listed the cause of injury as a “blunt trauma to the head.” His skull was fractured. Bruises were everywhere. Both eyes were swollen shut. There was massive internal bleeding. Prior to the incident, he had been an “at-large person,” a vagrant with no known address or visible means of support. Over the past four years, “the victim” had been arrested in and around Fort Lauderdale many times for being drunk and disorderly; for resisting arrest during an argument with his second wife; for stealing patrons’ drinks and change at jazz clubs; for driving a stolen car around and around a running track; for breaking into an unoccupied apartment to sleep; and, finally, for riding naked on the hood of a pickup truck.

“So, you see,” said the investigating officer, “the victim was not unknown to us. Still, no one deserves to die like that. He was beat to hell. He died for no reason.”

On the last day of his life, Jaco Pastorius woke up sober. On a whim, he called Terry, whom he hadn’t seen in a few months. He asked her to meet him for lunch at the Bangkok Inn, a Thai restaurant. She did. He had cleaned himself up, and their lunch was going along fine until Terry asked if he could get her and her new boyfriend tickets to that night’s Santana concert at the Sunrise Music Theater. Jaco said he thought he could work something out. When Terry and her boyfriend got to the theater, they found two tickets for excellent seats. They also found Jaco, drunker than Terry had ever seen him. He gave Terry the finger and swore at her, then staggered inside. During the concert, Jaco leapt onstage and stood behind the band’s bass player, who, ironically, was Alfonso Johnson, the man Jaco had replaced in Weather Report almost thirteen years previously. Before the audience even noticed what was happening, Jaco was led off the stage by the theater’s security guards. As he was taken out, he said to Terry. “I hope you and your blond-haired boyfriend are happy together.” He paused, then added, “I’m dead.”

Later, at one-thirty in the morning, Jaco called Terry’s apartment, even drunker than he had been. He called her a bitch and then hung up. For the next two and a half hours, Jaco Pastorius was an “at-large” person, until he tried to kick in the door of the Midnight Bottle Club and he became a “victim.”

---

The day after Jaco was found beaten senseless, Terry went down to the club to confront Luc Havan, to see for herself what kind of person could allegedly do such a thing. She found a bewildered, soft-faced man who could only say “I’m sorry,” without looking her in the eyes.

She went back to her apartment and rummaged through some of Jaco’s old letters to her. Then she played a tape she had made of a Christmas night in Germany when Jaco had come home drunk and abused her. His voice was slow, deep, throaty, the voice not of an uncomprehending drunk but of an actor playing a drunk. He accused Terry of being unfaithful. He spit at her. He told her she was the cause of his separation from his two ex-wives and his four children. When he hit her, she screamed. He said it was all her fault because she didn’t love him. Terry fled from the room. While she was gone, Jaco called Joe Zawinul in Los Angeles and began to cry over the phone. He told Zawinul how much he missed him, and then he hung up.

“That’s the way Jaco was,” says Terry. “He pushed people, and then he tried to turn them around so that they would feel guilty and sorry for him. After I broke up with him the last time, I saw him one day with nail polish all over his face. He wanted me to think it was blood. Jaco let himself get beat up and put in jail so we’d all feel guilty. He used his drinking as an excuse to let things happen to him. He used me as an excuse, too. Jaco used everybody. He used them and pushed their buttons and then tried to turn them around. But he couldn’t turn Luc around.”

After Jaco died, Kevin Kaufman went to Holiday Park to see if his bass was still there. Once, when Jaco was in jail, Kevin had retrieved the bass from Jaco’s bum friends, who had hidden it for him. This time, however. Kevin couldn’t find it.

At Jaco’s funeral, Ingrid wore the red shirt Jaco had bought on their honeymoon. Terry did not attend.

On December 2. 1987, Luc Havan was formally charged with second-degree murder in the death of John Francis Anthony “Jaco” Pastorius Ill, who, in fact, had finally turned him around.

 

Πηγή: http://www.thestacksreader.com