jaco and toots ~ encore
Pastorius was most identified by his use of two well-worn Fender Jazz Basses from the early 1960s: A 1960 fretted, and a 1962 fretless. The fretless, known by Jaco as the "bass of doom", was originally a fretted bass (at the time Fender did not manufacture fretless Jazz Basses) from which he removed the frets and used wood filler to fill in the grooves where the frets had been, along with the holes created where chunks of the fretboard had been taken out. Jaco then sanded down the fingerboard, and applied several coats of marine epoxy (Petit's Poly-poxy) to prevent the rough Rotosound RS-66 roundwound bass strings he used from eating into the bare wood. Even though he played both the fretted and the fretless basses frequently, he preferred the fretless, because he felt frets were a hindrance, once calling them "speed bumps". However, he said in the instructional video that he never practiced with the fretless because the strings "chew the neck up." Both of his Fender basses were stolen shortly before he entered Bellevue hospital in 1986. In 1993, one of the basses resurfaced in a New York City music shop, with the distinctive letter P written between the two pickups. The store told Bass Player magazine it was brought in by a "student" of Jaco's, and the asking price was $35,000. In early 2008, the bass of doom, last seen with Jaco in Central Park shortly before his death, surfaced in New York City. It is unknown where the bass of doom has been for the last twenty years, but it was examined by several experts as well as bassists Will Lee, Victor Wooten and Victor Bailey, and is almost certainly Jaco's. The bass of doom's appearance has also drastically changed, since he smashed it shortly before his death, and it now has flame maple veneers to hold the shattered pieces together. Jaco also had two Jaydee Basses made for him shortly before he died; a fretted and a fretless.
wiki entry
- bill 8-16-2008 9:10 pm

teen town
- bill 8-16-2008 9:39 pm [add a comment]





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