petebrunelli

I know where and when I was hit broadside by the realization that I was a bass player. I was taking bass guitar lessons at Creative Music in Wethersfield, CT. It was a big deal for me. Bass was the only instrument that I enjoyed playing. I had washed out of playing both guitar and drums, but it was pointed out to me that I played guitar like a bass. After taking some local lessons with a guitar player/teacher I got a chance to take a block of lessons at Creative Music in Wethersfield, CT, which was where you wanted to study if you were into jazz, and especially electric jazz. I had been playing a bad P-Bass copy for a year or so, and had a loaner double bass from the school system. Creative was a great shop with great teachers, but next-door was Integrity ‘n Music, an amazing record shop. It was there, waiting for my lesson slot, that I saw the self-titled Jaco Pastorius album. I knew his name because he was on the credits for my favorite Weather Report album “Black Market”. That album blew the top of my head off.

Within a month I had ripped the frets out of my bass, filled the slots with glue (aided by the use of a heatlamp), and I have been playing fretless bass ever since. That was about 1979 and was as close to my predecessor’s “saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan” apocrypha as I will ever get. I had a similar experience with Mingus’ music but I had neither the skill or the patience to do more than listen to those compositions. But Jaco, there was a cat you could get down with. I still have not a single Jaco-like lick in my bag. I never learned PoT, I never developed a harmonics workout… but I knew that you could play fretless electric bass and make it somehow your own.

Lately there is news afoot that bassist Robert Trujillo is producing a biographical film about the life of Jaco Pastorius. I am totally behind that concept. Recent movies like Standing in the Shadows of Motown have been heavily influential on both me and the music world at large. I just saw the HBO film about James Brown, Mr. Dynamite, and it was as good a 2-hour course in funkology as you will find. If a Jaco movie does nearly as well it would be a huge success. Jaco is undeniably a one-man genre and deserves this kind of recognition in spades.

My issue is not with the movie, but with Robert Trujillo’s place in the pantheon of bassists. He has been remarkably successful as a musician. He has played with the top names in heavy rock, and is immediately identifiable by look of not by sound. But he was at the center of one of the great scandals of modern rock history, and I can’t help thinking that it damages the concept of a homage to Jaco.

In 2002 Trujillo was the bassist for Ozzy Osbourne, and the event was the 20th anniversary of the Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of a Madman albums that put Ozzy back on the map after leaving Black Sabbath and then not having much to say. Ozzy was never much of a songwriter. He may have had a few lyrics to his name but he was a rock frontman first and forever. While the Sabs were inventing the power-ballad with Ian Gillian as vocalist (Born Again, underrated jewel), Ozzy was looking for a new band. What he had was guitar prodigy Randy Rhoads, and bassist Bob Daisley who were working on writing songs and finding a drummer. They found Lee Kerslake, a journeyman who fit like a glove.  The albums they produced are still staples of rock-radio airplay. Randy Rhoads became a guitar superstar. Ozzy was back, with albums that were successful beyond his wildest dreams. You would think that he would have been kissing Bob Daisley’s feet…

No. When the 20th anniversary of those albums came out, Ozzy, with his wife Sharon holding the whip, decided to photoshop Bob Daisley and Lee Kerslake out of the picture in both artistic and financial terms. Robert Trujillo along with drummer Mike Bordin recorded new bass and drum parts for both albums, effectively eliminating the contribution of Daisley and Kerslake, and with Randy Rhoads dead, left all the credit and royalties to Ozzy/Sharon. Unsurprisingly the oblivious Ozzy can’t even decide if he knew about the decision. Sharon Arden Osbourne thinks she was at the Blizzard recording sessions, when she wasn’t, and denies making the decision to do this while everyone else says it was her idea/mandate. Her father was rock promoter/magnate Don Arden, so you can be forgiven for thinking that she has a feel for the darker regions of the music business.

I am not a huge fan of that genre, and have never been a big fan of Ozzy, but I feel like I know a good rhythm section when I hear one. Those albums had the power and swing to match heads with any Iron Maiden track or any Van Halen, Black Sabbath, etc… That band had a great sound. It was due to some excellent songwriting and excellent execution by the band. For Trujillo to have knowingly taken part in shanking a fellow bassist is, to me, unforgivable. In what should have been a victory lap for the songwriter behind two of the biggest selling rock albums of all time, it was a deeply shameful episode in a business full of shameful episodes.

SO while I think a Jaco movie is a great idea and hope for the best, I can’t help feeling that the project is tainted by this backstory. I have had feedback that Trujillo was just doing his job, just earning a paycheck, just a sideman, just, just, just… But he had a decision to make. He took the paycheck at the expense of the original artist. It makes me queasy just typing that. I hope the project succeeds, but while Trujillo is out looking for crowdfunding dollars to float the project, he won’t be getting penny-one from me. I should be breaking my wrist getting my wallet out of my pocket to help fund this, in the same way that I have for other projects ranging from the recent Wrecking Crew movie to a time many years ago when I contributed to a fund for Rocco Prestia’s health care (a situation that is re-appearing after many years, and I am sure I will help again). But I am reluctant, actually refusing, to support the producer of a project I would otherwise be all-in for, and it is not a good feeling. Jaco deserves the recognition, but I still think he deserves better than this.