I would love to see it. As such, the album is a sort of memorial record for him; all of the tracks featured were either written by him, or feature a bass solo performed by him as the centerpiece of the track. There is fealty and gratitude in Evans approach to that famed date, and we have our early summer day out with the best of chums, people we feel are our musical friends. Everything. Scott LaFaro. [My] early years at the university were thoroughly engaging intellectually but were also a time of deep introspection. Beginning in 1955, he was a member of the Buddy Morrow big band. Is that a bass thing? Did you and your brother spend time at the Smith Opera House (which was Schines Geneva Theatre back then)? Mom needed the money. John Tynan wrote inDownbeatthat the rhythm duo [LaFaro and Billy Higgins] were the baddest cats on the date. 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. He lives in Boston and has contributed toJazzTimessince 2006. A Dead Musician Directory Celebrity Page. Today would be the 78th birthday of the great Scott LaFaro, who died in a car accident in 1961. Available Qualities. Composer: Porter: 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! California had affordable education, and we could all go to college. 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. In 2007, 46 years later, Roy introduced Helene to the great bassist Christian McBride. ~ Charles A. Ralston, A Site About Dead Musicians and how they got that way. The trio attracted attention for its style. Dad (Joe LaFaro) never forced us to play music. Yes, the Evans dynamic provided him with a perfect setting. We would explore all around our neighborhood on West Street our house was where the elementary school is. Smith Opera House is owned and operated by the Smith Center for the Arts, a private not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation. But we LaFaros have staying quality, and my husband and I just celebrated our 60th year in this house. Paul Motian was on drums, Nobby Totah on bass. He waited until we got interested, and then he was totally supportive. Evans, according to Motian, would play "I Loves You Porgy," a song with which he and LaFaro became synonymous, almost obsessively, but always as a solo piece. The 25-year-old Scott LaFaro's death in a car accident shortly after was a major shock to the jazz world. Hes just so damn elegant. Upon returning to L.A., LaFaro phoned his friend Herb Geller, who was then playing alto with Benny Goodman in New York. Former Major League Baseball pitcher Scott Erickson has been charged in connection with a hit-and-run crash in Westlake Village that killed two . It is well remembered as the final performance by the Evans trio of the time, which included bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Victor Feldman. Includes Obituary, Biography, Discography, Photo, and Links. "Route 66" songwriter Bobby Troup was the show's host. 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. 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. 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. Once he got the gig, his college days were over. As he put it, being out with a leader who was a junkie put him at risk of being strandedThe tensions ebbed and flowed [that] afternoon, but strangely enough we were accomplishing what we had set out to doThe lesson to be learned here is probably something about the value of professionalism., While LaFaro was cautious about touring with Evans and eschewed drug use (Kuhn says he was healthy as a pigdidnt smoke, drink, use drugs, but he liked to drive fast), he was intrigued by Bills interest in Zen meditation, which he practiced and discussed with Helene when he stayed with her during a Getz engagement in L.A. Later in high school, kids would go to the movies with their friends, or boyfriends, or girlfriends. I remember one time Scotty came home with an LP under his arm. Sign in to continue reading, Sixty years after the bass greats untimely death, a look at his musical legacy beyond the Bill Evans Trio. 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. LaFaro took the opportunity, and he was the trios helmsman. LaFaro left Morrow and settled in Los Angeles in 1957. Tales are told of how much John Coltrane practiced, but you could say the same about the bassist from Newark. 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. Composer: Mercer / Kosma / Prevert He would practice for hours: he had all these Sonny Rollins solos he had written out in bass clef! By. While driving home late one nighthis car went off the road and struck a tree. He died near Geneva in an auto accident in 1961. Bassist Dave Green joins Alyn Shipton to pick the highlights of these, and to trace the other significant records in LaFaro's brief but brilliant career. Ted Gioia, in his 1997 survey,The History of Jazz, said, "LaFarotook far greater chances, departing markedly from the traditional walking line, instead offering countermelodies and guitar-like phrases. Friedman first heard LaFaro with Buddy Morrow, and then they worked together with Chet Baker. A copy of the latest annual report may be obtained from the Smith Center or from the Office of the Attorney General, Charities Bureau, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271. 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. The music of Jazz Abstractions proceeds as a series of shadings, which tend to be called variants on the finished LP. A driver was killed when a car crashed into a home in the Hancock Park . He used a Zen epigram in the closing of his letter to Gloria: Im trying to remember a bit of Zen I like so well: If you seek the fruits ofgood actionso shall they escape you. I try to smile everyday with that., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uugimR8honE, When I asked Kuhn if Scotty had similar anxieties about touring with Getz, he said no, but he recalled a bandstand incident between the bassist and the tenor player whom Kuhn called extraordinarily paranoid. One night at the Blackhawk in San Francisco, he said, they clashed. 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. Q: Your family ended up following Scotty out to California. Motian operated the same way; if anything, he was even more of a painter than the leader. 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. Scott LaFaro was born 64 years ago today. This article is about the 1961 Village Vanguard recordings. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ_rZZusz90, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbTEgBEaEM4. July 6, 1961 in Seneca, NY. [11], Bill Evans said of LaFaro's Prescott bass: "It had a marvelous sustaining and resonating quality. LaFaro died in an automobile accident on July 6, 1961 in Flint, New York on U.S. Route 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua, four days after accompanying Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival. Fraternal guidance, in that this endeavor allowed fellow band members to do what they best did. Stan was playing a melody, and Scott began doubling it. He said, Man, youve gotta hear this. He was excited. 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? The tendency is to associate him with classical predilections, but here he is at one of the zeitgeist-shaking avant-garde sessions, and boy, does he drive the sound. [3] He took up double bass at 18 before entering college because learning a string instrument was required of music education majors. The 25-year old Scott LaFaros death in a car accident shortly after was a major shock to the jazz world. 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 trios legendary performance at the Village Vanguard. 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. He says they formed an immediate friendship, and that musically, Id never felt such an instant connection. Labels. 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. Your family ended up following Scotty out to California. 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