The music of Jazz Abstractions proceeds as a series of shadings, which tend to be called variants on the finished LP. 1998 Kevin Crosby. LaFaro died in an automobile accident in the summer of 1961 in Flint, New York on U.S. 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua, two days after accompanying Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival. She had lost her husband, then four years later lost her son, and she still had young kids to raise. He got his first professional experience playing bass at Belhurst (with my fathers group). To top it off, the old cars didn't have self-sealing gas tanks and as in the case of LaFaro's accident, if they ruptured, frequently resulted in fire. ", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-Z8KuwI7Gc, Jade Visionscredits the demo session that LaFaro made with Steve Kuhn and Pete LaRoca nearly a year later as one where this conversational approach to group dynamics was evident. 4 or The Paradox of Continuity, The Montreal Tapes: with Geri Allen and Paul Motian, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Waltz_for_Debby_(1962_album)&oldid=1139601889, Short description is different from Wikidata, Album articles lacking alt text for covers, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2021, Articles with MusicBrainz release group identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Note on the alternate takes: "For this CD release, alternate versions of three of the six selections have been inserted just after the ones originally chosen for issuance.[] Death. LaFaro was killed in a car accident near his hometown of Geneva, N.Y., at age 25. On date night, people would end up at The Smith. Each year during the first week of April, The Smith hosts the Scott LaFaro Day Celebration concert that features a contemporary bass player. He waited until we got interested, and then he was totally supportive. I remained close friends with Scotty in New York, and would go over there to see and admire them, and Scotty and Paul would come over to the Five Spot, too. In sum, LaFaro visited Geneva, his home town, spent some time with some local friends, drove one of them to visit a mutual friend, left to return to Geneva, fell asleep at the wheel, hit a tree near Flint, NY, seven miles east of Geneva, and burned to death. Scott was already playing like that with Bill., Recorded on November 29, 1960, the four-song session wasnt officially released until 2005. We are in a fix! The album included five tracks recorded in New York City during 1961 with pianist Don Friedman and drummer Pete LaRoca.[13]. Scott died instantly and the world lost a talented andinnovative musical voice. (, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 23:36. Read More Joe Williams: Beyond the Blues, As a JazzTimes writer, I can talk about the powers of a dynamic drummer until Im blue in the face: the weight of each tom-toms Read More Chops: What Bassists Listen for in Drummers, America's jazz resource, delivered to your inbox. I quit very fast, but he was a natural. Often controversial, always entertaining, JazzTimes is a favorite of musicians and fans alike. He was excited. Despite his short career, he remains one of the most influential jazz bassists, and was ranked number 16 on Bass Player magazine's top 100 bass players of all time.[2]. LaFaro took the opportunity, and he was the trios helmsman. When Scotty was killed at age 25 (I was 24), I was devastated I couldn't play for months. In high school Scotty played clarinet and tenor saxophone, in spite of not being happy about a lip injury he got playing basketball at the Y. Rocco Scott LaFaro (April 3, 1936 July 6, 1961)[1] was an American jazz double bassist known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio. There is a grave mistake a prospective listener can make with LaFaro, and when I say what that is, I may come off as somewhat risible, but one must do what is right: loving the Village Vanguard recordings so much that you sleep on the rest of what he achieved as a certain kind of jazz genius. Member Of . [15][16], According to Joachim Berendt, LaFaro's innovative approach to the bass caused "emancipation", introducing "so many diverse possibilities as would have been thought impossible for the bass only a short time before". Oscar Peterson Trio . Victor Feldman. My dad loved the director, so we had to go and have that experience as well. Styles. Dad (Joe LaFaro) never forced us to play music. The highlight of the session was Scotts original, Misery (to Lady Day). Evans biographer Peter Pettinger said of the dedication to Billie Holiday, Not much happens, but a wavelength is established. LaFaro burned like a meteorite, rising to the top rank of bassists in a few short years and working with a Whos Who ofjazzgreats in the compressed time frame preceding his death at age 25. [10] Composer: LaFaro LaFaro achieved fame in the Bill Evans Trio, which he joined in 1959 and which featured Paul Motian on drums. Friedman relates inJade Visions,He used to play my piano, and was very interested in minor 7thchords with the flat 5th. This was Scottys home, and he would practice bass facing the corner in the living room because he could better hear the sound quality. How did that happen? This year The Smith is excited to have National Endowment of the Arts Jazz Masters, Kenny Barron (piano) and Dave Holland (bass), together on stage on Saturday, April 6. He practiced from sheet music for the higher-pitched clarinet to improve his facility the upper register for bass. The loss of LaFaro hit Evans hard, and he went into a brief seclusion. He had an incredible ear. LaFaro-Fernandez: Scotty and I were born in New Jersey but we moved back to Geneva in 1942. I remember one time Scotty came home with an LP under his arm. Kuhn remembers hearing that it was a St. Christopher medal that LaFaro always wore that helped to identify his badly burned body. Published since 1970, JazzTimesAmericas Jazz Magazineprovides comprehensive and in-depth coverage of the jazz scene. Places to dine, drink, stay near the Smith Opera House, A word of caution about buying tickets on the secondary ticket market. The group attended the funeral in Geneva, which Kuhn adds was closed casket., LaFaro's death was devastating to Bill Evans. At that years Monterey Jazz Festival, LaFaro performed with both the Coleman Quartet and Gunther Schuller. Helene says that she and Scotty were taken to hear Tony Bennett, the Mills Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie and numerous others. Ornettes group with Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell played the Village Gate for three weeks in August and September followed by engagements in Philadelphia and Detroit. The texture, however, is the back of the handthats the form of caress, rather than the rough-skinned palm. Composer: Hawes Lets call it the chimerical voice of the rhythm sectionas well as what could often be the lead instrument when LaFaro was in your band. A post-bass bass player, maybe. LaFaro is one of those players who register to the ears like more than one man, generating a huge amount of sound with ostensibly little effort, and that sound resonating as direct, controlled, economical; this is part of the reason why. Little must have loved LaFaros contributions, because he himself was one of those players between spheres: neither a bopper nor a hard-bopper nor an out-and-out New Thing guy. With my mom and Scotty and my two sisters and then our own kids, we eventually had to build onto the house. Your family ended up following Scotty out to California. John Tynan wrote inDownbeatthat the rhythm duo [LaFaro and Billy Higgins] were the baddest cats on the date. It wasnt until he left for Ithaca College, where music majors were required to play a stringed instrument, that he first played bass. Q: So if you were all living in California, how was it that your brother was near Geneva when he died? . Advice and guidance to those interested in building a library of jazz recordings. There is a creek that ran through the park, it would go up past Shuron Optical where they used this rouge chemical to make glass lenses, so the creek was always red. Is that a bass thing? ~ Scott Yanow. For much of 1958, LaFaro was with pianist/vibraphonist Victor Feldman's band. It was released in 1962. He played sessions at the Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach, and roomed with fellow bassist Charlie Haden, who recalled the first time LaFaro mentioned Bill Evans. ~ Charles A. Ralston, A Site About Dead Musicians and how they got that way. LaFaro broke new ground on the instrument, developing a countermelodic style of accompaniment rather than playing traditional walking basslines, as well as virtuosity that was practically unmatched by any of his contemporaries. Following the Vanguard engagement, LaFaro played with Getz, Steve Kuhn, and Roy Haynes at Newport on July 2. He also played in Stan Getz's band between jobs with the Bill Evans trio. Chuck and Gap Mangione were among the locals hanging out that night, andJade Visionsincludes Gaps recollection of listening to Chet Bakers recording of Grey December with Scotty. Includes Obituary, Biography, Discography, Photo, and Links. Scott LaFaro was born 64 years ago . Put one way: Scott LaFaro was up for it. This album is widely considered to be one of the best in the Evans canon, and the type of emotive interplay between the musicians that at some points seemed almost deconstructed has served as a model for piano trio play. A stacked bass makes for a stacked musical deck. Its there for a reason, and thats not solely to complement the proof of the magic that occurred at a New York City club in late June 1961. After Scotty joined the Buddy Morrow Orchestra, he traveled with them all over the country until they reached California, as he really wanted to be where the West Coast jazz scene was happening. 1950s - 1960s. We were like brothers., Six months before the session with Kuhn, LaFaro recorded with trumpeter Booker Little on April 13 and 15. Q: Your family ended up following Scotty out to California. He waited until we got interested, and then he was totally supportive. I was 19 and working. Your IP: The album was the fourth and final effort from the unitLaFaro died in a car accident just ten days after the live date at the Village Vanguard from which Waltz for Debby and its predecessor, Sunday at the Village Vanguard, were taken. Also in 2009, the University of North Texas Press published Jade Visions, a biography of LaFaro by his sister Helene LaFaro-Fernandez, with an extensive discography. We were the kind that played a fraction, a millimeter behind. Everything. After that touch of piano, he really started to enjoy music and develop a keen awareness of what it was all about. The BMW then struck a fourth car which was traveling south on Corbin Avenue. We think of LaFaro as a jazz bassist with leanings toward classical music; its the lan, I think. Tales are told of how much John Coltrane practiced, but you could say the same about the bassist from Newark. They spent so much time discussing music, listening to records, at the piano, they were inseparable. California had affordable education, and we could all go to college. New England Public Media | ai! An investigation is underway after two people were killed in a crash involving a big rig along the . LaFaro-Fernandez, Helen; Ralston, Chuck; Campbell, Jeffrey R.; Palombi, Phil (2009). By City News Service. Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, and others were also featured, and LaFaro drew notice from Dan Morgenstern inMetronomefor a solo remarkable for its technical skill and musical weight. The piece was Schullers Variants on a Theme by John Lewis (Django), which he would also appear on in December when Schullers work was recorded for the Atlantic Records release,Jazz Abstractions. The car, tree and garage all caught fire. Having followed him out to Los Angeles in the late 1950s along with the rest of the LaFaro family, LaFaro-Fernandez still lives in California and continues to answer daily inquiries about her brother, conduct interviews, and ensure his legacy will inform musicians and fans for generations to come. He insisted that Stan fire LaRoca and hire Roy Haynes, and Stan was so impressed with how strong and unique he was that he acceded to his wishes.. In spring 1960, he featured on a half-dozen tracks that trumpeter Booker Little cut for his second session as leader. In 2009 she published a biography about him, Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro. LaFaro and his stellar bandmates pianist Don Friedman and drummer Pete LaRoca run through four jazz standards, including two takes of Sacre Blu. Those years of self-discovery can be challenging at times and those moments found their perfect expression in the Village Vanguard SessionsI listened to that music for so many hours that it became my constant silent companion and a beacon of hope.. The three not duplicated here were played only once that day. Before long he mastered the instrument, and he toured with trombonist Buddy Morrow and trumpeter Chet Baker. LaFaro's death took an enormous emotional toll on Bill Evans, who was, according to drummer Paul Motian, "numb with grief," "in a state of shock," and "like a ghost" after LaFaro's death. Brooklyn, NY The other day at school someone mentioned Red Mitchell taking the bass which was in the car crash that killed Scott LaFaro back to Kolstein's in pieces, and Kolstein, fairly recently, restored it. Q: Did you and your brother spend time at the Smith Opera House (which was Schines Geneva Theatre back then)? Also, Club 86 was bringing in major stars as well. Free Jazz did that kind of splicing and segmenting for you, as part of, neatly enough, its original integrated sonic package. Stan was playing a melody, and Scott began doubling it. Scott Yanow, All-Music GuideScott LaFaros life and career were cut short in July of 1961. [17], When I was in L.A., Scotty LaFaro and I roomed together. I was also told by classical bass players that this also changed things for them because as was with all music pretty much up until then, the bass was considered more of a rhythm instrument only. Composer: Gillespie He told Helene that Scott lived for the bassHe was looking all the time to play. The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings, 1961, "The 100 Greatest Bass Players of All Time - BassPlayer.com", "It was just one afternoon in a jazz club forty years ago", "It's official: April 3 will be Scott LaFaro Day in Geneva", "Innovation and Inspiration: Geneva celebrates the life and legacy of renowned jazz musician Scott LaFaro", "Honoring Scott LaFaro in Geneva, NY: Scott LaFaro Day, street re-naming, and a special Geneva Night Out on April 4th", NAMM Oral History Interview with Helene La Faro, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Scott_LaFaro&oldid=1141284283, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Articles with dead external links from July 2021, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using infobox musical artist with associated acts, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Bud Powell. She writes, What he said not only had an impact on me, but seemed to sum up much of what I had been hearing as I talked to musicians. They needed a bass clarinetist, and he promised Scotty that he would be allowed to play clarinet and eventually the tenor sax if he took that position. You can read our interview with Holland. This Third Stream affair has jazz as a major tributary vein, and it has LaFaro to thank for it. The young bassist was friends to other artists and art during his all-too brief sojourn upon the mortal coil. Born in Newark, New Jersey, United States,[1] the son of a big band musician, LaFaro was five when his family moved to Geneva, New York. Smith Opera House is owned and operated by the Smith Center for the Arts, a private not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. Musician. He took up bass because he was required to play a stringed instrument at Ithaca College. I get 10 to 12 emails a day asking about Scotty. He died near Geneva in an auto accident in 1961. In Meet Me at Jim & Andy's: Jazz Musicians and Their World, Gene Lees wrote, "The shock of LaFaro's death stayed with Bill for years, and he felt vaguely guilty about itHe felt that because of his heroin habit he had made insufficient use of [their] time togetherAfter LaFaro's death, Bill was like a mane with a lost love, always looking to find its replacement. Evans was an articulate interweaver of a pianist, a melodic speaker, a filigree lord rather than a rhythm king. A master of the upright bass, he recorded with Bill Evans and Ornette Coleman before he died in a car crash at age 25. My dad took Scotty to see anyone who came there, or to Syracuse or Rochester. Already a member? You may additional context in comments. LaFaro started his professional career playing a German-made Mittenwald double bass but it was stolen in the Spring of 1958. Its the top of the sheet, instead of the coarseness of the winter blanket. Composers. Fellow bassist Red Mitchell taught him how to pluck strings with both the index and middle fingers independently. "Route 66" songwriter Bobby Troup was the show's host. On Sundays our family would go to church, then go to the movies in the afternoon. Active. In 2009 she published a biography about him, Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro. 52.119.1.55 ", In 1966, Evans spoke with George Clabinabout what he called his "complexand quick relationship" with Scotty, and said his technique was "built throughintuitive insightand fire, as some kind of a spark in him which took over and he would just grab the bass and he would work and work and work and work and he would just lay it down. The Getz Quartet, with either Henry Grimes or Jimmy Garrison spelling LaFaro (Kuhn cant recall for certain), was playing that week at Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks. He wanted the conversation back and forth between each of the players, and he wanted to play melody. 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