Today in Rock History – 1st DECEMBER:

BIRTHDAYS
1944: Eric Bloom (Blue Oyster Cult)
1944: Bette Midler
1946: Gilbert O’Sullivan
1951: Jaco Pastorius
1956: Julee Cruise
1958: Lisa Fischer
1959: Stephen Batt a.k.a. Steve Jansen (Japan)

EVENTS
1957: Buddy Holly appeared on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’, performing “That’ll Be The Day” & “Peggy Sue”.
1967: The Jimi Hendrix Experience released their second album, ‘Axis: Bold as Love’.
1973: Black Sabbath released their fifth album, ‘Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’.
1993: Death of Black Sabbath / Badlands singer, Ray Gillen [aged 34].
1993: Death of violinist, Stephane Grapelli [aged 89].
2009: Dream Theater played a concert at Civic Theater, Auckland ~ I was there!

Jaco Pastorius would have been 73 today. Here’s to you, Jaco ~ one of the greatest bass players ever! Since it was Jimi’s birthday only a few days ago, here’s Jaco playing some Hendrix, as part of his bass solo (using a looped digital delay ~ filmed way back in 1978).

The great ‘JACO’ movie doco was released in 2015… “Produced by Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, JACO includes some incredible insights from an array of artists including Flea, Joni Mitchell, Sting, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Geddy Lee, Bootsy Collins, Carlos Santana and others as well as Jaco’s family, and friends. It unveils the story of his music, his life, his demise, and ultimately the fragility of great artistic genius. There are few musicians who fundamentally change their instrument, and even fewer still who transcend their instrument altogether. Jaco Pastorius did both.”