It wasnt until he left for Ithaca College, where music majors were required to play a stringed instrument, that he first played bass. Cloudflare Ray ID: 7a154b16ff047cd4 Pianist Prez was then a professor at the New England Conservatory; his student, Read More Explaining the Taubman Approach, Everyone knows that Joe Williams sang the hell out of the blues, but do you know what else he sang the hell out of? He replaced Charlie Haden as Ornette Coleman's bassist in January 1961. Geller said Goodman was unhappy with his current bassist, and offered to recommend Scotty but cautioned, Bennys very conservative, dont do any of those fast things you can do. Geller recalls that at the end of Scottys first night with the clarinetist, the two went around to hear Bill Evans. While his music education began in grade school with piano and then clarinet and tenor saxophone in junior high and high school, he didnt start playing bass until his senior year, and only because a string instrument was required for his enrollment at Ithaca College, where his intent was to major in clarinet and tenor saxophone. Paul Motian was on drums, Nobby Totah on bass. In Jade Visionshe says, Scott wasnt what one would consider a big band bass player. Jan. 30, 2021 1:47 PM PT. LaFaro also played opposite bassist Charlie Haden in alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman's experimental double quartet on Free Jazz. It was an idyllic childhood. Composer: Hawes I suppose technically, yes, though its also far more, and thats a LaFaro thing. Jazz. Shortly after, he acquired a bass made in 1825 in Concord, New Hampshire by Abraham Prescott. Mom needed the money. The music of Jazz Abstractions proceeds as a series of shadings, which tend to be called variants on the finished LP. LaFaro took the opportunity, and he was the trios helmsman. You can read our interview with Holland here. Scotty sort of led the way on the bass becoming a solo instrument in its own right. Chicago, 1956. It was there his career exploded. [7], In June 1961, the Bill Evans trio began two weeks of performances at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Tragically, LaFaros chance to see how far his talent would take him was cut short when he died in a car crash near Geneva in July 1961 at the age of 25. During World War II the club scene changed and he came back to Geneva where he could find work. [5] He left that organization to work in Los Angeles. As weve already noted regarding the time period right around his tragic death, LaFaro packed a lot of art into his days. Scott was already playing like that with Bill., Recorded on November 29, 1960, the four-song session wasnt officially released until 2005. LaFaro completed his first year at Ithaca, but not his second. 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. After three months at Ithaca College, he concentrated on bass. Q: When did your brother start getting interested in music? I would love to see it. The texture, however, is the back of the handthats the form of caress, rather than the rough-skinned palm. Thanks to Rifftides readers Frank Roellinger and Svetlana Ilyicheva for alerting us that last Thursday, Geneva honored LaFaro on his 78th birthday by proclaiming April 3rd its first annual Scott LaFaro Day. 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. Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFarorecounts how three days after his appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival with the Stan Getz Quartet, hed driven to Geneva, NY to take care of some business related to his mothers home there. Friedman relates inJade Visions,He used to play my piano, and was very interested in minor 7thchords with the flat 5th. So help yourself to his more, if you will. Then wed go home and have dinner and ice cream. This page was last edited on 24 February 2023, at 08:03. Death. Performers: Bill Evans, p; Scott LaFaro, b; Paul Motian, d. Village Vanguard, 25 June 1961. Former Major League Baseball pitcher Scott Erickson has been charged in connection with a hit-and-run crash in Westlake Village that killed two . He heard what I was doing at the piano, and I heard what he was doing. He says that word of the accident reached Getz over the wire through his manager Jack Whittemore, and that all were incredulous at the news. Chops: What Bassists Listen for in Drummers, The 10 Best Jazz Albums of the 1950s: Critics Picks, Year in Review: The Top 40 Jazz Albums of 2022, Year in Review: The Top 10 Historical Albums of 2022, Chops: What Bassists Listen for in Drummers. And how does it go? Scott was extremely picky and choosy, and he wanted to call the trio. How did that happen? Joining Palombi on this date are Don Friedman and Eliot Zigmund. Kuhn remembers hearing that it was a St. Christopher medal that LaFaro always wore that helped to identify his badly burned body. 1926). The 25-year old Scott LaFaro's death in a car accident shortly after was a major shock to the jazz world. Los Angeles Fire Department crews were called to the scene to extinguish the blaze. Before that grim July night, LaFaro had been a busy bassist. Helene makes no secret of LaFaros exacting standards and competitive personality, and she quotes many who testify to the same. Did you and your brother spend time at the Smith Opera House (which was Schines Geneva Theatre back then)? On date night, people would end up at The Smith. He would be playing in the hotel room and hit a quadruple stop that was a harmonious sound, and then set the bass on its side and it seemed the sound just rang and rang for so long. That left air and spaceand timewhich could do with some filling, some shaping. Died . The two albums released by Riverside Records from that fabled performance,Sunday at the Village VanguardandWaltz for Debby, have long stood as his epitaph. He was a musician from age 4. He started playing piano in elementary school, bass clarinet in middle school, and tenor saxophone when he entered high school. Tonight Show, 14 Feb 1957. LaFaro-Fernandez: On Sundays our family would go to church, then go to the movies in the afternoon. Places to dine, drink, stay near the Smith Opera House, A word of caution about buying tickets on the secondary ticket market. Evans, LaFaro, and Motian were committed to the idea of three equal voices in the trio, working together for a singular musical idea and often without any musician explicitly keeping time. All that listening to the trio had another effect on me. All is possible, and then all is no more. According to Paul Motian, the death of LaFaro left Bill Evans "numb with grief", "in a state of shock", and "like a ghost". All rights reserved. LaFaro continued to play this bass until his death. 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. LaFaro is best known as the bassist in Bill Evans' groundbreaking trio, and also worked with Chet Baker, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins and the Stan Kenton Orchestra. Scotty and I were born in New Jersey but we moved back to Geneva in 1942. The great bassist is best known for his work with the Bill Evans Trio between 1959 and '61, and for the tragic car accident that claimed his life on July 6, 1961, two weeks after the trio's legendary performance at the Village Vanguard. LaFaro-Fernandez: After Scotty played at the Newport Jazz Festival with Stan Getz (July 1961), he went to Geneva to try to convince the people who had been renting our house to buy it. 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]. We are in a fix! One of the most substantial biographies I've read in recent years is the 2009 publication that Helene LaFaro-Fernandez devoted to her brother Scott. Stan said fine. Kuhn and drummer Pete LaRoca were Scottys choices, but in the midst of a two-week engagement at the Sutherland Hotel on Chicagos Southside, LaFaro had got tired of LaRocas playing. In 2009 she published a biography about him, Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro. In the mid 1950s, at the Los Angeles music scene, he became known as one of. He died near Geneva in an auto accident in 1961. It was written with so much love and insight. Killed in a car accident aged just 25, Scott LaFaro was widely regarded as the most technically gifted bassist of the 20th Century. In LaFaros short yet meteoric career, he accomplished more than most musicians do over decades. His records with Bill Evans are among the finest jazz trio discs ever made. LaFaro died in an automobile accident on July 6, 1961, in Seneca, New York,[5] on U.S. Route 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua,[9] four days after accompanying Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival. We also spent time at the First Presbyterian Church choir. How did that happen? Also, the last picture taken by a person just before their death is acceptable. Active. We all knew something important was going to happen with this guy., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4CrJ9lyzE, Jade Visionsis suffused with the perspective of an admiring, yet candid sister who overcame the grief of her beloved brothers sudden death and drew inspiration from friends and fans who urged her to write this richly evocative and musically illuminating volume. He waited until we got interested, and then he was totally supportive. We never got to enjoy it as a concert venue in our day, unfortunately. He would have played twenty-four hours a day if he couldHe was learning a mile a minute., Morrows outfit had a big hit with Night Train. The bandleader told Helene, We were a band which was dedicated at the time to mainly rhythm and blues. Victor Feldman. 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. ~ Scott Yanow. Other birthdays Monday: Jimmy McGriff, 64; Harold Vick, 19361987; and Eric Kloss, 51. Composer: LaFaro 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. A driver was killed when a car crashed into a home in the Hancock Park . There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data. Read more about this topic: Scott LaFaro, Time is here and youll go his way.Your lung is waiting in the death market.Your face beside me will grow indifferent.Darling, you will yield up your belly and becored like an apple.Anne Sexton (19281974), Poor fellow never joyed since the price of oats rose, it wasthe death of him.William Shakespeare (15641616), Ai! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqSL3xGW70, The Evans Trios appearance at the Village Vanguard opposite Lambert, Hendricks & Ross in June 1961 culminated with the legendary recordings made on the last day of the two-week engagement, Sunday, June 25. The portion of Linden Street that runs from Seneca Street to South Exchange. 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 joined the Bill Evans Trio in 1959 and, although he would record with Ornette Coleman (including Free Jazz) and gig with Stan Getz, the bassist is best-remembered for his association with Evans, particularly their Village Vanguard recordings of 1961. Put one way: Scott LaFaro was up for it. The helmsman remains present to take us many places where we otherwise might not have gone, and no one has steered that ship better than Scott LaFaro. A jazz musicians legacy can be a multifarious slope. Im in the position of having nothing you can put your finger on for sale., Evanss drug addiction was also a matter of concern for LaFaro. Performers: Chet Baker, tp; Phil Urso, ts; Francy Boland, p; Larance Marable, d; Scott LaFaro, b. It was released in 1962. In his liner notes, producer Orrin Keepnews focused on the phenomenon of Bill Evans thepianist, but the lone paragraph devoted to the other members of the trio noted that they werent limited toconventional rhythmic backing, and cited Autumn Leaves, as a harbinger of things to come. Many believe that Evans never fully recovered from the loss, as well as that it contributed to his pattern of heroin usage, an addiction that would later kill him. But we LaFaros have staying quality, and my husband and I just celebrated our 60th year in this house. Bill Evans came to hear Scotty in New York City, and since he was needing a bass player and Scotty was then playing at a nearby club, he stopped in to listen. But its a moment were meant to be a part of, that both surrounds us and is for us. California had affordable education, and we could all go to college. 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. His most recent books are an entry in the 33 1/3series on Sam CookesLive at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, a volume about the 1951 film Scrooge as the ultimate work of cinematic terror, and the story collection, If You [ ]: Fabula, Fantasy, F**kery, Hope. So even a low speed accident which would be survivable in today's cars, would be a mess in an older car. It was there his career exploded. One may even ask the question whether it is possible to love jazz and not love Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, and I dont think youre being a curmudgeon if you stamp a foot and issue an emphatic No, by Jove!. Colin Fleming writes fiction and nonfiction on myriad topicsart, film, music, sports, literature, current eventsfor a wide range of publications, and talks regularly on radio and podcasts. Little, another ill-fated star of the period who died at 23 in October 1961, described LaFaro in the liner notes as distant, but closea paradox that resolves only for those who were simpatico. He also recognized Scottys distinctiveness as an innovator who was much more of a conversationalist behind you than any other bassist I know[Hes] technicallyabout the greatest bassist we have. Remarking on the solo LaFaro plays on Bee Tees Minor Plea, the trumpeter said, The bass is a crude and rude instrument, but Scott makes it into something else. Helene says Scotty would have loved being described as something else, since I could remember how excited [he] was when he brought around to play for me the first record of Ornettes he owned,Something Else.. - The Absolute Sound Scott LaFaro's Pieces of Jade features long-lost material recorded in New York City shortly before the bassist's death in a car accident in 1961. AMAGANSETT, N.Y. - Acclaimed tenor saxophonist Robert Berg was killed Thursday when a cement truck skidded across a snow-slicked road and rammed into his sport utility vehicle, East Hampton police said. 52.119.1.55 On Sundays our family would go to church, then go to the movies in the afternoon. 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. [11], Bill Evans said of LaFaro's Prescott bass: "It had a marvelous sustaining and resonating quality. Joining Palombi on this date are Don friedman and Eliot Zigmund all go to,... Former Major League Baseball pitcher Scott Erickson has been charged in connection with a hit-and-run crash in Westlake that... Kloss, 51 Los Angeles music scene, he used to play my piano, and thats a thing. 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