Jaco Pastorius (1951 – 1987)
Jazz bassist and composer remembered for his style and technique on fretless bass.
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I never practiced a fretless ever, because the strings eat the neck up. So I would only play it on gigs.
I took the frets out of my bass after I was getting into jazz a lot and I wanted to have that upright sound.
I was playing drums, and I had broken my wrist very bad playing football, and the bass player in the band... he wanted to split. So I just went to the bass; I went from Drums over to Bass. That was it. I was playing the bass within a week.
I had an upright — it took me years and years to get enough bread to get it... I'm from Florida, so one morning I woke up, go in the corner and the bass is in a hundred pieces, cause the humidity is so bad, I mean, the upright just blew up. I said forget it, man, I can't afford this any more. So I went out, got a knife and took all the frets out of my Fender. That was it.
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