THE FORUMS

NO TREBLE

KEVIN JOHNSON

What would you do if Jaco offered you a bass lesson?

This month, bassist Mike Frost shared an incredible experience he had 35 years ago. He landed lessons with Jerry Jemmott, whose playing enriched Atlantic records by the likes of Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack, and Ray Charles. The seasoned session player easily clocked the student’s influences, and after two weeks Jemmott asked Frost if he’d like to take lessons with the legendary Jaco Pastorius.

‘You can’t imagine my reaction to that phone call,’ Frost wrote. ‘Here was the bassist that all bassists were blown away by, and I was going to get a lesson with the one and only Jaco Pastorius. The greatest bassist of that era, in my opinion, and possibly the best player ever.’

Frost wrote about their first lesson, from his impressions