Jaco Pastorius - Biography Controversy

Biography Controversy

In 1995, jazz author Bill Milkowski wrote Jaco: The Extraordinary And Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius. Published by Miller-Freeman, the book incorporated Milkowski's firsthand experiences with Jaco when he lived in New York between 1982 and 1986, when Pastorius's health had deteriorated. This was supplemented by extensive interviews with friends, family and colleagues of Pastorius, as well as musicians and industry insiders.

Pastorius's second wife Ingrid has complained that the book treated Jaco Pastorius with a lack of sensitivity, and has listed a number of contextual inaccuracies on her website. Guitarist Pat Metheny, who was a close friend before Pastorius joined Weather Report, wrote in the liner notes of the reissue of Pastorius's first album that Milkowski's book was "...a horribly inaccurate, botched biography." Meanwhile, John Corbett of Downbeat wrote: “With insight, care and plenty of musical detail, Milkowski charts the bassist’s trip from Florida beach and cruise-ship gigs and a year in Wayne Cochran’s C.C. Riders to fame with Weather Report and misfortune in his drug-and-drink ridden ‘dark years.’” Michael Point of the Austin American-Statesman wrote: “To his great literary credit, Milkowski tells the bassist’s story with enlightening candor, allowing his sympathy to be palpable without obscuring the hard, cold facts.” Rick Anderson of Library Journal called it “A clean, carefully written, biography that tells Jaco’s story without lurid drama but also without flinching from the tragic details.”

A 10th anniversary edition, published in 2005 by Backbeat Books, was a greatly expanded and updated version that included a 40-minute CD of spoken word testimonies from key figures in Jaco's life along with examples of his early bands before joining Weather Report in 1976.