I discovered Joni Mitchell’s music through Jaco Pastorius. I was trying to collect everything he had recorded, and that search led me to Hejira.
What started as following my favorite bass player turned me into a Joni Mitchell fan. I ended up buying all her records, not just the ones Jaco played on.
Hejira might be my favorite album of all time.
A Connection Beyond the Record Collection
Over the years, I’ve been involved in several Jaco projects, including his website, Portrait of Jaco: The Early Years, and promotion of the Jaco documentary. That work led to conversations with his family and others who knew him and his music.
Bob Bobbing, the producer of the Portrait of Jaco box set, told me that Jaco loved the bass sound captured by engineer Henry Lewy on Hejira so much that he brought the record to later sessions as a reference for the sound he wanted.
Why I Keep Coming Back to ‘Refuge of the Roads’
Jaco plays on four of Hejira’s nine tracks.
Jaco’s bass feels like a second voice on “Refuge of the Roads.” It’s more than a single bass track, and the layers give the performance so much texture. I consider it one of the greatest fretless bass performances of all time.
I bought Hejira because Jaco was on it. It became one of my favorite albums because of the music as a whole, and it sent me deeper into Joni Mitchell’s catalog.
