Jaco

by bill milkowski • 1995

This story of a musician hailed as a genius and dismissed as a madman will appeal to anyone intrigued by the fine line between creative inspiration and insanity. Jaco looks deep inside the life and music of this talented but tormented bass player who revolutionized his instrument and became one of the most potent forces in modern music. Like his heroes Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, Jaco didn't make it to age 40. But by the time he died at 35, the music world was indebted to him. Jaco had reinvented the role of the electric bass - playing melodies, chords, harmonics and percussive effects simultaneously, and bridging the gaps between jazz, classical, R&B, rock, reggae, pop, and punk. Jaco rode his fame like a skyrocket to oblivion. This book begins that trip with Jaco's first gigs on the Florida nightclub circuit in the late '60s, follows him on tour with Wayne Cochran & The C.C. Riders in the early '70s, and traces his whirlwind evolution into an international star with Weather Report by 1978. But Jaco also reveals the artist's private battle with manic-depressive psychosis aggravated by substance abuse, and describes his tragic downfall that led to homelessness and bizarre behavior on the streets of New York, institutionalization, release, and a senseless, violent death in 1987.