Taking a tip from Red Mitchell, he trained himself to pluck the strings of his bass with his index and middle finger independently. LaFaro achieved fame in the Bill Evans Trio, which he joined in 1959 and which featured Paul Motian on drums. The texture, however, is the back of the handthats the form of caress, rather than the rough-skinned palm. 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. 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!. 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. We are in a fix! We also spent time at the First Presbyterian Church choir. The group attended the funeral in Geneva, which Kuhn adds was closed casket., LaFaro's death was devastating to Bill Evans. Q: When did your brother start getting interested in music? Often controversial, always entertaining, JazzTimes is a favorite of musicians and fans alike. [9], Writing for AllMusic, music critic Thom Jurek wrote of the album: "While the Sunday at the Village Vanguard album focused on material where LaFaro soloed prominently, this is far more a portrait of the trio on those dates Of the many recordings Evans issued, the two Vanguard dates and Explorations are the ultimate expressions of his legendary trio. Each year during the first week of April, The Smith hosts the Scott LaFaro Day Celebration concert that features a contemporary bass player. 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. It was then he fell in love with the tenor saxophone. 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. Scotty had the concept for a trio to be conversational instead of the classic structure, instead of bass and drummer just keeping time. Search Music. Performers: Bill Evans, p; Scott LaFaro, b; Paul Motian, d. 28 Dec 1958. Ornette Coleman was another musician who appeared on the Jazz Abstractions datebut as with Dolphy and Evans, on just half the recordand I often imagine the conversations he might have had with LaFaro during breaks and between takes about what Coleman had in mind for the next day. Other times, its distilled into a moment that seems to transcend itself, and thus it went for Paul Gonsalves, hero of a Newport afternoon. At the time it was such a revolutionary idea, and it ushered in a sea change for jazz. LaFaro's freewheeling, harmonically advanced bass style with the Bill Evans Trio (1959-1961) opened a door to a wholly new approach to the instrument that influenced a generation of players who followed in his wakeEddie Gomez, Dave Holland, and Marc Johnson, to name just a few. He was excited. Performance & security by Cloudflare. 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. Composer: Rosolino I quit very fast, but he was a natural. The bass was badly damaged in the automobile accident that killed him, but was eventually restored and is sporadically used in performance to honor LaFaro. Geller recalls that at the end of Scottys first night with the clarinetist, the two went around to hear Bill Evans. On date night, people would end up at The Smith. Yes, the Evans dynamic provided him with a perfect setting. He wanted the conversation back and forth between each of the players, and he wanted to play melody. LaFaro continued to play this bass until his death. Shortly after, he acquired a bass made in 1825 in Concord, New Hampshire by Abraham Prescott. 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. 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. Kuhn is uncertain about exactly where he met LaFaro, but says it was most likely when he heard the Evans trio at the Five Spot late in 1959. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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. He proved to be a natural for the instrument, which obsessed him, and early in his sophomore year he went on the road with Buddy Morrows orchestra. Scotty was on the road at the time, in California. New England Public Media | I remember one time Scotty came home with an LP under his arm. John Tynan wrote inDownbeatthat the rhythm duo [LaFaro and Billy Higgins] were the baddest cats on the date. (, This page was last edited on 15 February 2023, at 23:36. The important thing is his art while he lived. 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. Bill had first heard Scotty with Chet Baker three years earlierNot long after we were back off the Goodman tour, there was a call waiting for Scottythat Bill wanted him to work with him., The first meeting of what became known as the trio took place at a Tony Scott recording date on October 28 and 29, 1959. . LaFaro continued to divide his time between Getz, Ornette, and Evans in 1961. That show typically includes stories about LaFaro, who forever changed the jazz worlds concept of what bass playing could accomplish with his counter-melodic style. Bill Evans Trio. 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. Later in high school, kids would go to the movies with their friends, or boyfriends, or girlfriends. The 25-year old Scott LaFaro's death in a car accident shortly after was a major shock to the jazz world. So help yourself to his more, if you will. 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. Hes just so damn elegant. 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. My day consists of such a singular preoccupationthe physicology of music. Already a member? Bassist Scott LaFaro of Geneva had already achieved acclaim when he died in a car accident at the age of 25. He worked from sheet music for the clarinet, with its much higher pitch, to improve his command of the bass upper register. LaFaro went on to perform with Victor Feldman, Chet Baker, Benny Goodman, Stan Kenton, Stan Getz and Ornette Coleman. When did your brother start getting interested in music? When Scotty was killed at age 25 (I was 24), I was devastated I couldn't play for months. LaFaro took the opportunity, and he was the trios helmsman. Find him on the web at colinfleminglit.com (where he maintains the unique online journal, the Many Moments Moreblog) and on Twitter @colinfleminglit. Your family ended up following Scotty out to California. Performers: Hampton Hawes, p; Harold Land, ts; Scott Lafaro, b; Frank Butler, d. 14 Mar 1958. Composers. [7], In June 1961, the Bill Evans trio began two weeks of performances at the Village Vanguard in New York City. The title track, a musical portrait of Evans' niece, became a staple of his live repertoire in later years. Sometimes its defined by contrasting stylistic paths that amalgamate into a career, as with Miles Davis. Musician. Joe LaBarbera, who drummed in the trio with Evans and Johnson, says, Bill said regarding Scott and the music, that Scott hated it when it remained the same. Gloria Gabriel was one of the dancers. Not long after he arrived on campus, he gave his clarinet away to a classmate. Performers: Stan Getz, ts; Steve Kuhn, p; Scott LaFaro, b; Roy Haynes d. Newport, 2 July 1961. He was a tremendous talent [who] wanted to go on to greener pastures.Over the next two years, Scotty toured the country with Chet Baker, and worked around L.A. with Hampton Hawes, Harold Land, Buddy DeFranco, Richie Kamuca, Joe Gordon, and Stan Kenton. 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.. Later we moved to Elmwood Place, and during the summer we would spend many of our days at the Brook Street Playground. Also, the last picture taken by a person just before their death is acceptable. The two albums released by Riverside Records from that fabled performance,Sunday at the Village VanguardandWaltz for Debby, have long stood as his epitaph. AllMusic Quiz. In 2009, Resonance Records reissued five tracks from Memories for Scotty on Pieces of Jade, together with twenty-two minutes of LaFaro and Bill Evans practising "My Foolish Heart" during a rehearsal in 1960. Steve Kuhn, who felt a brotherly kinship with Scotty and says his sudden death was the first major loss of my life, describes him as very strong-willed. (He also says that LaFaro, who was a fan of Formula One and sports car racing, drove a little too friskily for my taste.) A case in point was LaFaros departure from Kenton, which was precipitated by his displeasure with the bands new drummer, a situation that would repeat itself in 61 when he insisted that Stan Getz replace drummer Pete LaRoca. Kuhn remembers hearing that it was a St. Christopher medal that LaFaro always wore that helped to identify his badly burned body. 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. They worked together with vocalist Dick Haymes, whose road show included dancers and a comic. Little was as star-crossed as LaFaro, and hes usually talked about in conjunction with altoist Eric Dolphy as often as LaFaro is with Evans. Helene makes no secret of LaFaros exacting standards and competitive personality, and she quotes many who testify to the same. 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. 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