“One of the guys said, ‘Joni, there’s this weird bass player in Florida, you’d probably like him’”: How Joni Mitchell formed an unlikely partnership with Jaco Pastorius

Although much of his fame stems from his time with Weather Report, Jaco’s recordings with Joni Mitchell yielded some of the finest bass playing of his career

by Nick Wells
Guitar W
April 17, 2025

As sideman, bandleader or composer, Jaco Pastorius is one of those rare players who can legitimately be said to have revolutionized their instrument. With his lyrical, melodic fretless work, growling fingerstyle 16th note playing and jaw dropping harmonics Jaco had total control of the bass guitar, and a charisma and stagecraft that would put many rockers to shame.

It's a sign of this unique status that we in the bass playing community only need to use his first name when referring to him: like Elvis, Madonna and Prince, everybody knows who Jaco was. In simple terms, there's bass before Jaco, and bass after Jaco, and that alone is reason enough to love the man.

His work with jazz-fusion giants Weather Report is seminal stuff, but if jazz ain't your thing then check out his superb work with Joni Mitchell to hear his bass playing in the context of more accessible songs.

Mitchell's first encounter with Pastorius came during the recording of 1974's Court and Spark, as she recalled during an interview for the 2014 documentary, Jaco. "One of the guys in the section said to me, 'Joni, there's this really weird bass player in Florida. You'd probably like him.' He was showing off beautifully, and that's what I wanted to bass to do. I wanted it to show off a little more."

Mitchell had collaborated with some impressive bassists in her early years, including Wilton Felder and Stephen Stills, but Jaco was far more than simply "the bass player"; rather, he was a consummate musician, and could build up inventive basslines according to the arrangements he could hear in his head.

"Jaco and Joni Mitchell had a very unusual and tremendous chemistry together," the late jazz saxophonist Michael Brecker told Bassist magazine back in December 1998. "They took each other to places that I don't think either of them knew they would be going to, musically speaking. She was able to hear the beauty in his playing and use it to change her own music, I think."

Interviewed for the December 1987 issue of Musician Magazine, Mitchell said, "Until then I had started to think, 'Why couldn't the bass leave the bottom sometimes and go up and play in the midrange and then return? So when Jaco came in, I remember percussionist John Guerin said to me, 'God, you must love this guy; he almost never plays the root.'"

Jaco became integral to Mitchell's new sound during the recording of her eighth studio album Hejira, playing bass on four tracks: Hejira, Black Crow, Refuge Of The Roads, and Coyote, each featuring the more sensitive side of Jaco's playing rather than the fiery technical wizardry with which he is often associated. That said, there are some tricky harmonics involved in his bass parts.

"The band with Joni Mitchell, Shadows and Light Band, was really extraordinary," said Michael Brecker. "It consisted of Jaco, Pat Metheny, myself, Don Alias and Lyle Mays and Joni, of course. It was a group of very good soloists who managed to play together really well. We brought a different sound to Joni's music."

Despite his contributions, Pastorius hadn't listened to any of Mitchell's music before working as a studio musician, later recalling in Bill Milkowski's book, Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius, "Once my kids were born, I was working around the clock and didn't have time to listen to music.

"So I didn't know Joni's music, but it was really fun coming in from nowhere and adding this thing. It was a nice combination, especially on the Hejira album."

Jaco's unique tone began with a '62 Fender Jazz bass which he promptly converted into a fretless, pulling out the frets and filling the slots with wood filler

To protect the fingerboard from abrasive roundwound strings he coated it with 10 layers of marine epoxy, providing a hard surface that gave the bass its singing quality.

He played through an Acoustic amp (model 360 X 2 with built-in fuzz) and also used an MXR digital delay and a Boss Octave Divider.