Jaco Pastorius was a tragic genius who first came to my attention with agile basslines on my favourite Joni Mitchell albums.

His lithe and sprightly fretless bass playing lit up those jazzy ones like Court & Spark, Hejira and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns; especially on the song Coyote.

Then again, his career was meteoric in the proper sense of the word: in the way he blazed on to the scene in the 1970s, only to flame out tragically in the 1980s.

He complemented his fluid machine-gun like basslines with a strutting, dancing, flamboyant performing style and posed a further triple-threat as a talented composer, arranger and producer.

But his virtuosity went to his head: there’s a gruesome YouTube video on which he plays a neverending bass solo at one of Joni’s concerts; impressing other bass guitarists, if no one else.

Born in Pennsylvania, Pastorius grew up in Fort Lauderdale, where he played with visiting R&B and pop acts while still a teenager and built a reputation as a local legend.

Everything started to come together for him quickly once he started playing with another rookie fusionmeister, Pat Metheny, around 1974 and two years later he joined Weather Report, playing for five more years alongside Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter.

His virtuosity made him an in-demand session man too, leading to those recordings with Joni Mitchell and other artists, including Blood, Sweat & Tears, and he made a well-received solo album in ’76.

Alas, Pastorius became overwhelmed by mental problems, exacerbated by drugs and alcohol in the mid-Eighties, leading to several embarrassing public incidents, including a violent crack-up on-stage at the Hollywood Bowl in mid-set at the 1984 Playboy Jazz Festival.

Such episodes made him a pariah in the music business and by the mid-Eighties he had become a street person, reportedly sighted in drug-infested inner-city hangouts.

With his achievements largely forgotten, he died aged only 35 in 1987 from a physical beating sustained while trying to break into a nightclub in his Florida hometown. 

But he was canonized soon afterwards by fellow bass legend Marcus Miller, who wrote a tune in his honour called Mr Pastorius.

And no bass playlist would be complete without this solo tune demonstrating his agile, nimble-fingered, fretless style. And no list of great bassists would be complete without him.