No Beethoven: An Autobiography & Chronicle of Weather Report

by Peter Erskine

  Of course, Jaco’s influence continues to extend far and wide, and any number of bassists I’ve worked with since those halcyon days of Weather Report bear his musical mark. For a while, it was difficult for me to listen to most anyone else play the electric bass, especially the fretless form of the instrument, without mentally comparing them to him. But several bassists’ personality and sound were so individual as to command my immediate enthusiasm and respect. Among them I would certainly count Will Lee. Will is one of those musicians who always makes the other musicians sound AND feel good; he positively has always made my drum tracks sound better than they might otherwise have turned out. How does he do this? Well, his rhythmic sense is so commanding that he seems to be able to “visualize” the entire arc of a song’s velocity and feel. He listens like nobody else, and his knowledge of the popular musical vocabulary of the last fifty years or more is as deep as anyone else’s I can think of. Instinct, knowledge, skill, and feel, all wrapped up in someone with a great sense of humor. I’m beginning to sense a trend here.

  In any event: what was it like to play with Jaco? It was, like, a real groove.

  And now the circle makes another round: my nephew Damian Erskine, son of my sister Nancy and bassist John Worster (who was playing with the Kenton band when I joined), is a tremendous electric bassist who is making a lot of (good) noise in the music world. We just toured South America and made an album with pianist Vardan Ovsepian. I’m only sorry that Damian’s grandfather Fred is not still with us to enjoy this family and collaborative moment. Let’s hear it for the bass!

  Recent revelation: I was listening to a rare live recording of Jaco with Wayne Cochran and the C.C. Riders on the Internet, and the drummer in that band was Allyn Robinson (he’s still playing in New Orleans; he was a young guy at the time, maybe a couple years older than me), and when I was listening to this I realized that Jaco must have felt a comfort factor hearing me play because I used to listen to Allyn in college on the album Cochran. Allyn was an influence on me, and so we played some things similarly. But I also did the bebop thing, and Jaco must have thought that this would be cool to have a guy who plays R&B the way Allyn does but also does the jazz thing. I’m just speculating.

  Jaco’s band Word of Mouth was going to become famous just like that, by word of mouth, according to Jaco’s master plan. Had Jaco’s mental illness not manifested itself so destructively, he would have enjoyed a very popular band indeed. One can only despair at the thought of the lost music and comradeship that his death is responsible for. Be that as it may, I tend to remember Jaco with a smile because he was one funny man, and his life force was incredible. Jaco was an artist on the bass, on the drums, at the piano, composing as well as on the sketchpad. He drew this portrait of me in no time at all.

  One time the band was playing in Tempe, Arizona at a place called Chuy’s Night Club, and the emcee there announced the group as “Jaco Pastorio’s World of Mouth Band.” We all agreed that the guy had at least gotten part of that announcement right.

  Jaco was the kind of guy who, when playing a friendly game of softball, would time an easy outfield fly ball catch so that it would become an all-out onslaught of a diving, sliding through the mud and grass with his gloved hand outstretched all of the way catch. Jaco loved drama and he liked to make people laugh. During an after-concert dinner in Oslo with a bunch of CBS reps, Jaco quietly excused himself from the table and went into the restaurant bathroom with a container of dental floss. He came out and sat down without saying a word, his face wrapped super-tight in the invisible string that caused all sorts of ridges and lines and bumps so that he appeared completely disfigured but in a hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it kind of way. He used to call it “String Face,” and it was pretty funny. Or shocking. Jaco was Jaco, that’s for sure.

  Jaco, according to Jaco, was never too loud. Whenever Joe would complain about the volume of his bass, Jaco would protest by pointing to the knobs on his acoustic 360 amps and say, “Do you see that? It’s set at exactly the same volume I played behind Phyllis Diller and Bob Hope at the Sunrise Theater in Florida. I’m not too loud.”

  photo: Shigeru Uchiyama

  26. Weather Report Attitude

  photo: Shigeru Uchiyama

  Weather Report was as much about attitude as most anything else. Of course, it was all about the music first and foremost, but the band saw itself as symbolic of what was truly hip and good in music and in life. Neither Joe nor Jaco were shy to proclaim themselves, their work, or their colleagues as being “the greatest” in the world or “in the history” to anyone. You spend enough time around that and it begins to sound fairly normal.

  When we were “on,” we were untouchable. I remember standing in the departures/immigration line at Japan’s Narita airport after one of our very strong tours there, and there was the great composer, arranger, and keyboard player Dave Grusin. While the band was usually quite polite to most colleagues (and Jaco and I were both big fans of Grusin’s writing), because Dave had apparently been in Japan as part of some other band’s tour — playing some form of West Coast soft-jazz-fusion (probably with guitarist Lee Ritenour) or producing some Japanese artist (possibly Sadao Watanabe), then he would get the cold-shoulder treatment from the guys. Maybe all of this was merely going on inside of my head and I was the only jerk to have recognized Dave in line and chosen not to acknowledge him, still, none of us said hello. We could be a full-of-ourselves if not prickly lot. Modesty, for the most part, was not the band’s credo.

  Scene: a popular nightclub in Australia we’ve been told about where a good local band is playing. Jaco and I get out of the taxi and I begin to head to the back of the line waiting to gain entry. Jaco says, “Hey! Where you going?” and he motions me to join him as he walks up to the door of the club where a bouncer stands guard. Jaco tells him, “My name is Jaco Pastorius and I’m the greatest bass player in the world, and this is Peter Erskine who is going to be the greatest drummer, and we’re with Weather Report and we want to come in,” and just like that the velvet rope slides out of the way and we are admitted into the club — no fee and no wait. Jaco was not shy.

  All the same, Joe would show great deference to any older musicians, especially jazz legends, some of whom were jealous about the band’s success or bitter that their music and musical ways appeared to be going the way of the dinosaur (only to be reborn to some great extent during jazz’s neo-classical period that began in the mid 1980s). Zawinul would get visibly excited at the mere sight of Woody Herman across an airport lobby. “WOODY HERMAN!” he yelled to the distant bandleader, who heard him and, taking one hand off his by-then-necessary walker, weakly waved in return. Joe proudly looked back at us and thumped his own chest vigorously with a clenched fist, saying, “Survivor! Woody Herman is a SURVIVOR.”

  I caught Joe in plenty of simmering or heated discussions with older jazz gents. Joe never showed disrespect to them and would patiently try to explain what it was that he and Wayne were trying to do with the band. One of them was the legend Milt Jackson, who was speaking with Joe in good animated humor, standing in a crowded bar located in the lobby of Copenhagen’s Plaza Hotel. The band was scheduled to have its one formal dress-up dinner of the tour in the hotel’s fine restaurant, an event we had been looking forward to for weeks. Our dinner reservation time was a few minutes away. The rule was to dress up for events like this, and I had on my favorite suit as I chanced upon Joe and Milt in the midst of their discussion. I politely nodded to Milt and tried to show my respect, pretty much just by keeping my mouth shut. Well, along comes Jaco, and now it’s the four of us standing there while Milt replies to something Joe said, and Jaco decides to disabuse Milt Jackson of a dearly-held assumption or conviction, which is bad enough, but then Jaco notices that Milt’s eyes are not focused on him — I suspect that Milt Jackson suffered from the eye condition known as strabismus — and so Jaco slaps Milt’s torso with the back of his hand while saying, “Hey, man, why don’t you look at me when I’m talking t
o you?” Jaco then shrugs to no one in particular and walks off towards the restaurant door. I can’t believe what I’ve just seen and walk off after Jaco, too embarrassed to stick around. We join the rest of the band and crew for dinner and proceed to order and dine — all of us except for Joe, who is stuck out in the lobby, buying drinks for Milt Jackson, all the while trying to calm him down after Jaco’s insulting behavior. Joe often had to clean up after our messes; as for this dinner, Joe was lucky enough to finally be able to join us just in time for dessert.

  Another time, it was our excellent tour manager Brian Condliffe who unintentionally caused a terrific stir, all of which added to the macho/strutting image of the band. The band was playing a late afternoon set at the JVC Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York in the large shed indoor/outdoor venue, a somewhat rare appearance for us as we did not normally share the stage with other bands due in large part to the magnitude and complexity of the setup. Notable exceptions were festival appearances in Havana, Rio de Janeiro, and Montreux — all of them problematic for one reason or another — but the band liked to have a full day for set-up and soundchecking prior to a concert. So, in order to make this gig do-able as well as for safety concerns, a solution was worked out in advance where the stage-side areas would be kept clear of anyone not directly associated with the band’s crew — in other words, no casual glimpsing or listening was to occur by other musicians or their friends, et al, on the bill.

  The band plays a killer set, and we depart the festival grounds in fairly short order to ride the tour bus back to Manhattan while the crew packs up all of our gear. In a celebratory mood, we congratulate each other on a successful summer tour of Japan and the USA, on a successful gig, and toast to a successful few upcoming days in the recording studio. As we drink, say salud, and smile in the front lounge of the bus, Brian Condliffe (who had extensive touring experience with Led Zeppelin prior to working with Weather Report) wants to join in on the discussion, climbing back from his usual seated position of shotgun.

  “So, guess what happened while you guys were playing.”

  Zawinul says with gusto, “Tell us, Brian!” and takes another sip of whatever we’re drinking.

  Brian, “Well, you remember we had to close off the side of the stage to everyone but the crew,” and this, of course, was not hard to remember since the concert was just a couple of hours prior. “So a security guard comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, I’m having a problem with some guy who refuses to leave the backstage area,’ and so he takes me to where this guy is standing, and I go up to him and politely offer, ‘Excuse me, sir, but I’m certain that you’ll enjoy the show much more from out front,’ and this guy says, ‘I want to listen to Joe and Peter from right here.’ So I say, ‘Well, I’m sorry, but no one is allowed to stand here, and so I’ll ask you again if you would please leave this backstage area and find yourself a seat out front.’” Zawinul is loving this; the band’s road manager is kicking the ass of some jerk while the band is kicking the audience’s ass. All of this seems perfectly right to Joe, and so with the blessing and encouragement of his “Go on, Brian!” and smile, our road manager continues: “And so this guy says, ‘Do you know who I am?’” This is met by guffaws from Joe and the band, as we love the pomposity of this apparent idiot meeting the irresistible force of our ass-kicking road manager (who was, for visual clarity’s sake, a fairly short fellow). Brian goes on, “No, I DON’T know WHO YOU ARE,’ and this guy says, ‘I’m Mel Lewis,’ and so I say….” At this point I look over at Joe in a panic, and he looks stricken as though someone has just poisoned his drink, but Brian doesn't notice and he merrily goes on: “Oh yeah? Well, WHO’S Mel LEWIS? Ha ha ha, ha, and….”

  Joe looks really sick, but there’s no stopping Brian. “And so he says, ‘If I can't stand here and listen to Joe and Peter, then my band is not going to go on,’ and I say, ‘Sir, I really don’t give a good goddamn whether your band goes on or not’….” By now it’s REALLY apparent how much damage has been done. Brian laughs at the end of his story and the bus lounge gets really quiet. He looks around with a kind of, “Uh, what happened?” look, and no one says much else for the rest of the trip, except for maybe a softly-muttered “God damn” from Joe as he shakes his head in disbelief.

  This was on a Sunday. Joe spent all of the next night at the Village Vanguard where Mel’s band was playing, apologizing to Mel and staying out of respect to hear the music instead of doing whatever Zawinul might have normally done on a night off in New York City.

  More Attitude & WR World-View

  Zawinul: “Always be good to the people who handle your bags and your food.”

  Jaco, walking into my hotel room and seeing my girlfriend's photo propped up by the bedside: “Man, you are pussy-whipped.”

  Zawinul, commenting upon Keith Jarrett’s audible moaning when Keith shows overwhelming appreciation of the first chord he’s played in a televised piano improvisation: “Let me tell you something: I've been playing the piano for a long time, and there's no one single chord that’s that fucking hip.”

  Jaco, upon my requesting that gin and tonic be added to the band’s dressing room rider: “Gin and tonic? What do you think this is, a rhythm and blues band? Forget it!”

  Zawinul, after news of the Jonestown massacre hit the newspapers: “You know what? I can’t wait until next week. Why? Because that’s when Time and Newsweek magazines will come out with color pictures of this shit.”

  Zawinul on the bus while trying to get me to take a lit hash pipe from him for a hit on our way to a concert in Berlin: “Here man... Here man... I said, HERE MAN, goddammit!”

  Wayne, as Boris Karloff bowling (elaborately imitating Karloff in a scene from Howard Hawks’ Scarface, but in a Karloff-ian voice more reminiscent of the actor’s later years): “Wu-atch this one…”

  Zawinul dismissing an invitation to go to a museum: “Culture? I AM culture!”

  When the guys wanted to really emphasize how good something was, they would add “in the history” to the accolade; e.g., “This is the greatest bowl of soup in the history.” I like that.

  27. Weather Report’s Contentious Ways

  …certainly extended to its relationship with the press. The infamous DownBeat magazine cover story from 1979, where the band took issue with that magazine’s one-star review of Mr. Gone, was no exception. For those who don’t remember that review, interview, and the incredible number of readers’ letters that followed, some context may be helpful. The band had completed its tours of Japan, Australia, and Europe as a quartet and was halfway through a U.S. tour, on its way towards making a live recording at the end of the tour on the West Coast and, all in all, feeling its collective oats. Because of the high ticket demand, second shows were being added to concert dates. (The band didn’t pay me any additional money for these tacked-on concerts; I don’t know if Jaco got any extra dough or not.) We were working hard, playing most every day, and getting the best feedback from audiences, fans, record company executives, and Joe and Wayne’s peers (the most important ears to us).

  We were invited to meet with a writer from DownBeat for a cover story interview and a lunch on the second of a three-day engagement at Chicago’s Park West club. I remember Joe being quite enthused about this opportunity for the band; he loved DownBeat and was all but certain that we would be treated as conquering heroes by virtue of this new band’s touring successes, the release of the new album, etc.

  So we met the writer for lunch at a Mexican restaurant that’s located not too far from the band’s hotel, and after shaking hands and as we began to seat ourselves at this large round table, writer Larry Birnbaum said, “Um, your new album, Mr. Gone, is getting a one-star review in the magazine,” and he turned on his Sony tape recorder. We were dumbfounded and felt blindsided by this; we totally did not expect this bit of news, and so the guys really let this poor writer have it. I was the new guy in the band, so I stayed quiet throughout most of the interview — besides, Joe, Jaco, and even Wayne w
ere not so eager to let this matter rest. So the lunch was not so great, and the interview was not so great, but the resulting magazine sales, according to what former publisher Chuck Suber told me a year later, were the best in the magazine’s history. People couldn’t get enough of us not getting enough stars in that poorly reasoned and written review.

  As macho as the band was, its feelings got hurt pretty easily, and not just by DownBeat. An African-American woman fell asleep in the front row of a concert we were giving in Houston, Texas, and Joe was obsessed with our playing “hip” enough to rouse her from her slumbers. (He was the only one in the band aware of this woman’s being in the Land of Nod, but he kept the concert going for an extra 30 minutes or more by extending every song so it could reach some sort of unobtainable climax. He was not happy, and neither were we.) She’d probably had too much to eat or drink before the concert — who knows or who cares? But the band did take its music and itself quite seriously while, at the same time, being the first to laugh at itself when it could. A one-star review in DownBeat was no laughing matter, however.

  But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. While promoting the Night Passage album, we are informed in Rome that the Italian press would like to meet with the band for a press conference just prior to the concert on October 24th, 1980 in Rome’s Palasport venue. The press conference may have been planned for some time, but the band is informed of it on short notice. There’s some going back and forth whether we want to do it, but our road manager urges the band to go ahead and meet the press. “On one condition,” Joe states. “No questions about Miles. We are not Miles’ children, and fuck Miles — we are doing our own thing now. We’re fine as long as there are no questions about Miles, okay? First Miles question and we’re out of there.” The promoter agrees.