This section includes excerpts from published books, arranged by author's last name, which include commentary on Scott LaFaro. In general these constitute reference works, jazz discographies, or biographies of other jazz musicians with whom LaFaro performed.
Amram Vibrations (1971 paperbound edition) Balliett Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz, 1954-2001 (2002) Balliett Goodbyes and Other Messages (1991) Berendt The Jazz Book: From New Orleans to Rock and Free Jazz (1975) Berendt The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond (1982) Berliner Thinking in Jazz (1994) Carr, et al. Jazz The Rough Guide (2d ed., 2000; 1st ed. 1995) Case The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz (1978) Crow From Birdland to Broadway (rpt 1993; 1992) Feather The Book of Jazz (1976 rev. ed.) Feather The New Edition of The Encyclopedia of Jazz (1960)
Amram, David. Vibrations: The Adventures and Musical Times of David Amram. New York: Macmillan, 1968. Viking Compass [paperback] Edition, 1971.
p. 375: Amram recounting his conversation with LaFaro in Hollywood, CA when the latter was with Ornette Coleman:
“Scott LaFaro [Amram recalls] was playing bass and I talked to him afterward.”
'I love playing with Ornette,' said Scott. 'He's some composer too. He wrote five new things yesterday. He composes all the time. The more I get into his music, the more I dig it.'
“It's funny seeing you guys out here,” I said.
'It's funny seeing you here,' said Scott. 'You going to settle down here and make a million?'
“Are you going to join Lawrence Welk?” I countered.”
'Crazy,' said Scott. 'You know Ornette's back trying to get our money. The owner doesn't want to come across with all the bread. So Ornette offered to shoot craps with him and settle it that way.'”
Balliett, Whitney. Collected Works: A Journal of Jazz, 1954-2001. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002. Paperback edition, April 2002.
At p. 874 "Index" entries for LaFaro include: pp. 114-115 (Gunther Schuller); p. 118 (Charles Mingus); pp 150-152 (Ornette Coleman); pp. 195-197 (Bill Evans); and pp. 479-480, and p. 561.
At p.196, in the essay, "Evans vs. Evans": "When [Bill] Evans formed a trio, late in 1959, with Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums, a peculiar thing happened: The burden of being the soloist instead of a soloist (emphases are Balliett's) appeared too much for him, and he became increasingly ruminative and withdrawn. He experimented endlessly with slow, cloudy numbers, and the singing climaxes all but vanished. Then, in the spring of 1961, LaFaro, a stunning musician who tried to draw Evans out by working contrapuntally with him and by playing daringly executed solos, was killed in an accident, and Evans' work became even more closeted and gloomy. The irony was uncomfortably plain: Evans, shy to a point of pain, had become a young Werther . . . "
Comment: With apologies to Goethe, it is Balliett in this cloudy and gloomy paragraph who exhibits the characteristics of a Young Werther. One is hard pressed to find anything cloudy in the structural approach to jazz that was Bill Evans'. And it is a stretch to imagine LaFaro as a 'Wilhelm' with whom Evans shared his 'Sturm und Drang' temperament (to stretch the romantic literary allusion that Balliett has chosen).
What I have lately said of painting is equally true with respect to poetry. It is only necessary for us to know what is really excellent, and venture to give it expression; and that is saying much in few words. To-day I have had a scene, which, if literally related, would, make the most beautiful idyll in the world. But why should I talk of poetry and scenes and idylls? Can we never take pleasure in nature without having recourse to art?
-- The Sorrows of Young Werther (Book 1, May 30th entry)
< http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Goethe/Werther/Default.htm >
Balliett, Whitney. Goodbyes and Other Messages: A Journal of Jazz, 1981-1990. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
p. 140: In a review of Bill Evans: The Complete Riverside Recordings:
"The most famous trio had Scott LaFaro on bass and Paul Motian on drums, and it existed from late 1959 until the summer of 1961, when LaFaro was killed in an automobile accident. LaFaro, in his mid-twenties, was an admirer of Charles Mingus and a brilliant bassist, whose methods are best heard in the work of [bassist] Michael Moore. Dancing, crowded, passionate melodic lines poured out of him, and he quickly and probably unwittingly became the dominant voice, forcing Evans in on himself and making the group his own. Evans, of course, wanted the trio to be three equal voices, not a piano with bass-and-drums accompaniment, but LaFaro's imaginativeness wrecked this idealistic notion. Evans, reportedly bereft when LaFaro was killed, apparently didn't fully realize LaFaro's strength. Or did he? Listen to the solo numbers Evans made not long after LaFaro's death and to the new trio, with Chuck Israels on bass. Evans holds forth, he sparkles, he swings ('Show Type Tune,' 'Everything I love.' 'Stairway to the Stars'), . . .
Comment: An excellent music critic, Mr. Balliett here seems for no good reason to find fault with the artistry and accomplishment of this edition of the Bill Evans Trio.
Berendt, Joachim Ernst. The Jazz Book: From New Orleans to Rock and Free Jazz. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1975. Translated from the German 4th edition, 1973 by Dan Morgenstern, and Helmut and Barbara Bredigkeit. Pp. 108, 282-283.
p. 108: LaFaro is mentioned only as a member of the Ornette Coleman double quartet which recorded 'Free Jazz.' in the context of an interesting comparison of John Coltrane's Ascension and Coleman's Free Jazz recordings.
p. 282: In the context of a discussion of the development of the double bass in jazz. �Some of [the players] have been path breakers for the development that was carried out by Charlie Haden and Scott LaFaro: the second 'emancipation' of the bass -- after Jimmy Blanton . . . "
Scott LaFaro, tragically killed in a 1961 auto crash at 25, was a musician on the order of Eric Dolphy, creating new possibilities not from disdain for the harmonic tradition, but from superior mastery of it. Hearing LaFaro improvise with the Bill Evans Trio makes clear what the bass has become through its second emancipation: a kind of super-dimensional, low-register `flamenco guitar,' whose sound has so many diverse possibilities as would have been thought impossible for the bass only a short time before, but which still (when there is demand for it) fulfills the traditional functions of the bass.”
p. 283: �Gary Peacock, who lived in Japan for a long time, seems like a younger Scott LaFaro.�
Berendt, Joachim Ernst. The Jazz Book: From Ragtime to Fusion and Beyond. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1982. Translated by H. and B. Bredigkeit with Dan Morgenstern. Translation of Das Grosse Jazzbuch (Frankfurt/Main: S. Fisher Verlag GmbH, 1981), Pp. 96, 231, esp. 261.
p. 261: � . . . and Scott LaFaro: the second phase of the emancipation of the bass -- after the first one associated with Jimmy Blanton and Oscar Pettiford.�
p. 261 following �. . . traditional functions for the bass� is the sentence, �Says bassist Dave Holland: 'the bass has become something like a fourth melody voice in the quartet. Wasn't Scott LaFaro the major reason for that?'�
Berliner, Paul. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994. (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology, edited by Philip V. Bohlman and Bruno Nettle.
LaFaro is mentioned four times in this marvelous, intriguing tome (some 800 pages in length!) about how jazz musicians think about their craft, how they learn from one another.
p. 131. following discussion of the impact of Jimmy Blanton's double bass solo on 'Jack the Bear', a solo which evidently still has an impact on jazz bass players, Berliner talks about technological changes to the bass (amplification, steel replacing gut strings, lower bridges) in the 1940s that allowed bassists to play with greater ease and facility, and about the trend among jazz bass players to study with classically-trained teachers, and gives a great example of how bass players learn from each other, to wit:
"Moreover, in order to meet the considerable demands that jazz performance places upon endurance and flexibility, many [jazz bassists] have adopted the multi-finger techniques of classical guitarists. Not surprisingly, they also invent their own.
Chance encounters among bas players produce revelations in this regard. At the recording session where they first met, George Duvivier and Scott LaFaro, who was 'more or less the pioneer of facility on the bass,' expressed surprise at each other's playing technique. LaFaro had thought that Duvivier played with two fingers, as did LaFaro himself. In fact, Duvivier was using only one finger like Ray Brown, who managed 'a lot of speed with it.' Never having observed two-finger playing before, Duvivier was equally fascinated by LaFaro. Over the years, players like Scott LaFaro, Charles Mingus, Paul Chambers, Eddie Gomez, Niels-Henning �rsted Pedersen, Richard Davis, and many others ultimately attained a level of virtuosity as improvisers comparable to that of other exemplary jazz instrumentalists."
p. 139. Following a discussion about imitation, absorption, and formulation of style, and using a quotation of pianist Walter Bishop Jr. who advises, "in the case of a pianist . . you take this person's rhythms, that person's harmonic structures, and another person's lines, and you put it all together yourself" Berliner says,
"Producing ever more subtle mixtures, one bass player patterned his upper register upon Scott LaFaro's sound, but imitated Ron Carter's sound in the lower register, particularly the unique resonance of his low C."
p. 319: Following discussion of bass players' different approaches to different meters and harmonic progressions, and the use of different registers depending on the role of that bass, whether foundational or interactional, at any time in the music, Berliner quoting bassists Buster Williams and Rufus Reid, and trumpeter Red Rodney, provides examples of these varying approaches and roles. Rufus Reid (Berliner says) " . . . reports that in Bill Evans's trio, it was as if Evans advised LaFaro not simply 'to walk' but to become a 'voice'. Through the Innovations of LaFaro and others, 'the whole thing evolved,' Reid explains, leading bass players to take the same kinds of liberties melodically and rhythmically that a horn player would. The bass continues to develop within the jazz idiom in direct relationship to the skills and creativity of its master artists . . . ."
p. 408, Berliner mentions Mingus and LaFaro in the midst of a discussion of the role of a bass player from the viewpoints of pianist Kenny Barron, Alto Saxophonist Lou Donaldson, and trumpet and flugelhorn player Art Farmer. All of these musicians want a 'walking' bass line behind them providing the supportive and essential groove or rhythmic pulse that provides the foundation on which these musicians work. Art Farmer: "They don't understand the value and the beauty of just playing bass. They want to play a thousand notes, all on top of the harmony. Mingus and LaFaro began to take it there, and everybody started becoming freer in their playing. Now bass players become easily bored."
Carr, Ian, [and] Digby Fairweather and Brian Priestley. Jazz The Rough Guide: The Essential Companion to Artists and Albums. Second Edition. London: Rough Guides, Ltd., 2000. Distributed in the United States by Penguin Books USA, Inc., New York, NY.
p. 441:
Scott (Rocco) LaFaro only took up the bass in 1953, when he began gigging in r&b groups. He toured with Buddy Morrow in 1955, and then worked in California with Chet Baker, Barney Kessel and Cal Tjader. He moved to New York, playing with Benny Goodman in 1959, and leading his own group. He joined the Bill Evans trio, with which his name is still indelibly associated, from 1959-61, but he also recorded with Vic Feldman, Hampton Hawes, and made two albums with Ornette Coleman (replacing his close friend Charlie Haden). He played with Stan Getz at the 1961 Newport festival immediately before his death in a car accident.
LaFaro has been, for both better and worse, one of the most influential bassists since Jimmy Blanton. During his brief period of prominence he took for granted the new mobility that Mingus had demonstrated and, inspired in part by the style of Red Mitchell, constructed his solos entirely from the sort of boppish lines used by pianists and especially guitarists of the late 1950s. In his solo work with Evans he achieved a kind of parity with the pianist, audibly expanding the role of the bass in piano-led trios far beyond the then norm. To achieve this required a low action (i.e., with the strings lying close to the finger-board, producing correspondingly lower volume and necessitating extra-close miking [i.e., amplification]), which was contrary to standard practice at the time. But the facility gained in the upper range ensured that everyone would eventually follow the same path and that better amplification would become essential.
Less frequently noted is LaFaro's rhythm-playing in the same group which, in partnership with Paul Motian, used a number of different gradations between straight-ahead and almost-out-of-tempo. This approach, quite distinct from either Ornette Coleman's rhythm-section with Charlie Haden or John Coltrane's, made a considerable impact on Miles Davis's 1963 group and, through them, on nearly everyone else. [BP]"
Note: This entry by BP [Brian Priestley] is the same as that found at pp. 369-370 in the first edition (1995) of this work. Apart from some minor errors of fact in the first paragraph above, Priestley's comment in the last paragraph about LaFaro's rhythmic impact on Miles Davis's 1963 group (with Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Ron Carter, and George Coleman) is of particular interest.
Case, Brian and Stan Britt. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: A Salamander book published by Harmony Books, a division of Crown Publishers, 1978.
p. 222, Index entry �Scott LaFaro� refers to pp. 26, 50-51, 72, 84, 90, and 127, which in turn refer respectively to entries for:
Blackwell, Ed (p 26) -- "Blackwell's style is simpler [than that of Billy Higgins, once his student] less cluttered than most drummers'; a tight snare sound dominates, propelling the rolling tattoo figures and often echoing the alto phrases. It is concentrated playing that deftly avoids the equally innovative use of rhythm by bassists like Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro or Jimmy Garrison."
Coleman, Ornette (pp 50-51) -- "Where musicians like Coltrane, Rollins, Mingus, and Russell, sought to find a way out of the harmonic maze of chord progressions, Ornette by-passed the problem. He based his improvisations on melodic and rhythmic planes, developing the solo along a freer-ranging logic than harmony had allowed. The music sounds like a non-European folk survival -- direct and moving. Group interaction depended upon intuition to a greater degree than with more traditionally structured music, for there were no pre-set formulas to fall back upon. The demands have whittled the Coleman cohorts to a handful -- trumpeter Don Cherry; bassists Charlie Haden, Scott LaFaro, Jimmy Garrison, and David Izenzon; drummers Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, Charles Moffett and Denardo Coleman; tenor man Dewey Redman." (p. 50) AND “Scott LaFaro's bass (Ornette!) though staggeringly innovative, was too prone to ornamentation for the needs of the music, and lacked the selflessness and intuition of Haden's work.” (p 51)
Evans, Bill (p 72) -- "The staggeringly original young bassist, Scott LaFaro, roves parallel to the piano, building structures of his own, intersecting briefly with a walking line or synopsizing the piano's direction with an appropriate chord."
Haden, Charlie (p 84) -- "The contrast between Haden and the late Scott LaFaro is well-illustrated on Ornette [Coleman's] great collective album Free Jazz. LaFaro, technically brilliant and, in Bill Evans' trio, fulfilling a similarly independent role, comes out as over-decorative by contrast with the sheer taste and restraint and ability to listen shown by Haden."
Hawes, Hampton (p 90) -- "The meeting with two members of the Curtis Counce group, tenor man Harold Land and the phenomenal Frank Butler on drums, plus the innovative bassist Scott LaFaro, produced an album [For Real!] of surging power."
Little, Booker (p 127) -- "Like Eric Dolphy, with whom Little produced much of his best work, the trumpeter was constantly searching beyond the chord changes: 'the more dissonance, the bigger the sound.' In fact, it is Little's lyricism that strikes the listener, the clean, sweet trumpet lines of 'Ode to Charlie Parker' (Far Cry) or the soaring accuracy of 'Life's A Little Blue' with Scott LaFaro's brilliant bass below (The Legendary Quartet Album [aka Booker Little]."
Note: Booker Little : The Legendary Quartet Album (Island) is another release (European?) of the original album Booker Little.
Crow, Bill. From Birdland to Broadway: Scenes From A Jazz Life. New York: Oxford, 1992 (reprint 1993; Oxford University Press paperback).
p. 154: " . . . I got to play with Bill Evans now and then during the following year but after he joined Miles Davis in 1958, I only ran into him at Newport and when Miles was playing in New York. Then Bill left Miles and began working with his own trio. I went down to the Village Vanguard to hear them, and was astounded by his bass player, Scott LaFaro. I had heard of Scott while he was living in California, but wasn't prepared for what I heard him do with Evans.
Scott had great speed and control on the bass, but it was his conception of the bass player's role with Bill's trio that interested me. Instead of laying down a steady four-four line, he played counter-figures with Bill, implying the pulse but rarely spelling it out explicitly. It was a wonderful musical game the Bill and Scott played exquisitely.
Bill suffered a terrible setback, and the jazz world was robbed of another of its innovators, when Scott died in an auto accident dear his home in Geneva, New York, in 1961. Though his career was short, Scotty inspired a generation of bass players that followed him."
Feather, Leonard. The Book of Jazz: From Then Till Now. Revised Edition. New York: Dell Publishing, A Laurel Edition, 1976. p. 141.
p. 140: �The experiments of [Charles] Mingus foreshadowed a development [of the bass] that took place around 1960. A new school of young bassists began to ignore the laws of timekeeping, tonality, cycles of fifths, tonics and dominants, and all the other guideposts of the bop-era bassists. Fulfilling a virtual solo function even while theoretically background members, they would delete, delay or anticipate notes during ensemble choruses. They had keener ears than their predecessors and refused to limit themselves to the traditional role of the bassist as beat purveyor.�
p. 141: �The unofficial founder of this school was Scott LaFaro, of the first [sic] Bill Evans trio. Born in 1936, and killed in an accident in 1961, LaFaro inspired such brilliant newcomers as Chuck Israels (who succeeded him with Evans); Charlie Haden, who came to prominence with Ornette Coleman; Gary Peacock, heard with various avant-garde groups; and Steve Swallow of the Jimmy Giuffre combo.�
Feather, Leonard. The New Edition of The Encyclopedia of Jazz. New York: Horizon Press, 1960.
Entry under "LaFaro, Scott, bass" :
"b. Newark, N.J., 4/3/36. Stud. clar. while attending high school in Geneva, N.Y.; at Ithaca Cons. for a year. Gigged around Geneva on tenor sax for awhile; took up bass the summer he grad. from high school, and with the exception of the year at Ithaca Cons. has played nothing else since. Worked in rhythm and blues bands and w. Buddy Morrow 1955; w. Chet Baker '56-7. Spent five months in Calif. practicing, then to Chicago and worked w. Pat Moran and Ira Sullivan. back to LA, he pl. with Barney Kessel and at Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse. To NYC Apr. '59, toured w. B. Goodman. Own trio in NYC fall '59, also w. Bill Evans. Won Down Beat Critic's Poll as New Star 1959. Favs: Chambers, Mingus, P. Heath. Brilliant, extremely promising bassist. LPs w. Victor Feldman (Contemp.), Pat Moran (audio-Fid.), Cal Tjader-Stan Getz (Fant.). Address: 4525 Van Noord, Studio City, Calif."