Come now MALDEK children, I`ll take thee away,
Into a Land of Enchantment.
Come, little children, the time`s come to play here, in my Garden of Shadows…
Do follow, sweet children, I`ll show you the way, through the pain and all sorrows…
Weep not, my poor children, for life is this way
Murdering beauty and passions,
Hush…
Jaco Pastorious: Portrait of Tracy
The piece appeared on Jaco Pastorius, Jaco’s astonishing first solo album: the same record that announced to the music world that something radically new had arrived. When listeners first heard it in the 1970s, many could scarcely believe it was being played on a bass guitar.
*“Tracy”* was Tracy Lee, Jaco’s first wife and the mother of his children. The composition is essentially an intimate love portrait rendered in harmonics.
There is something deeply personal in the atmosphere of the piece: it feels fragile, luminous, tender, almost childlike at moments.
Before Jaco, the electric bass was usually treated primarily as:
● rhythmic support,
● harmonic foundation,
● accompaniment.
Jaco transformed it into a singing, orchestral instrument.
In “Portrait of Tracy,” he uses:
● natural harmonics,
● artificial harmonics,
● ringing open strings,
● subtle vibrato,
● chordal resonance,
● and extraordinary control of sustain.
In this recording Jaco plays his famous fretless Fender Jazz Bass, often called: Bass of Doom. He had removed the frets himself and coated the fingerboard with epoxy resin to withstand the wear of roundwound strings while preserving the singing sustain that became his signature sound.