Jazz: Scott LaFaro

Rocco Scott LaFaro (April 3, 1936 – July 6, 1961) was an influential jazz bassist.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, LaFaro grew up in a musical family (his father played in many big bands). He started on piano while in elementary school, began on the bass clarinet in junior high school, changing to tenor saxophone when he entered high school in Geneva, NY. He only took up the double bass the summer before he entered college, since learning a string instrument was required for music education majors. About three months into his studies at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, LaFaro decided to concentrate on bass. He often played in groups at the College Spa and Joe's Restaurant on State Street in downtown Ithaca.

He entered college to study music but left during the early weeks of his Sophomore year, when he left to join Buddy Morrow and his big band. He left that organization in Los Angeles after a cross country tour and decided to try his luck in the Los Angeles music scene. There, he quickly found work and became known as one of the best of the young bassists. In 1959, after many gigs with such luminaries as Chet Baker, Percy Heath, Victor Feldman, Stan Kenton, Cal Tjader, and Benny Goodman, LaFaro joined Bill Evans, who had recently left the Miles Davis Sextet. It was with Evans and drummer Paul Motian that LaFaro developed and expanded the counter-melodic style that would come to characterize his playing. Ornette Coleman also collaborated with him around this time.

LaFaro died in an automobile accident in the summer of 1961 in Flint, New York on US 20 between Geneva and Canandaigua, two days after accompanying Stan Getz at the Newport Jazz Festival.

His death came just ten days after recording two live albums with the Bill Evans Trio, Sunday at the Village Vanguard and Waltz for Debby, albums considered among the finest live jazz recordings.

Although he performed for only six years (1955-1961), LaFaro's innovative approach to the bass redefined jazz playing bringing an "emancipation" introducing "so many diverse possibilities as would have been thought impossible for the bass only a short time before" , and inspired a generation of bassists who followed him.

Selected Discography:
Ornette Coleman – Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation by the Ornette Coleman Double Quartet (Atlantic, 1961)
Bill Evans – Explorations (Riverside, 1960)
Bill Evans – Sunday at the Village Vanguard (Riverside, 1961)
Bill Evans – Waltz for Debby (Riverside, 1961)
Victor Feldman – The Arrival of Victor Feldman (Contemporary, 1958)
Stan Getz – Stan Getz/Cal Tjader Sextet (Fantasy, 1958)
Hampton Hawes – Bird Song (Original Jazz Classics, 2000)
Hampton Hawes – For Real! (Contemporary, 1959)

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