He was super cool.

“Around 1978 I started to hear about this bass player, Jaco; one-word, four letters. An older friend, a bass player, turned me onto Weather Report’s Heavy Weather. The picture of this Jaco guy on the back of that album was really… exotic. There was a mystique to him. Soon after, I heard his first solo album. That track, Portrait Of Tracy, blew my mind because I couldn’t figure out what instrument I was hearing. It had the same effect on me as Van Halen’s Eruption. I first went to see Jaco live in 1979 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. It changed my life. He was super-cool. He looked like the surfers and skateboarders I grew up with in Dogtown. He took command of this audience of old jazzers, heavy metal kids, punks… The energy that surrounded him was enthralling. He had this edge, this attitude. Creatively, it made me realise there are no rules. It’s wide open. I’d always appreciated Joni Mitchell’s music but then I heard what she’d done with Jaco as collaborator on Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Mingus. I was blown away. It’s Jaco sharing terrain, catering to the creativity of someone else, but he’s still present, turns it into its own art-piece. When he died I was at my friend’s home studio, creating music inspired by Jaco. It was very sad. There’s been lots of stories about his personal life, lots of rumours… I’d seen him play at The LA Guitar Show, sitting in a room. He looked us all in the eye with an intense glare, didn’t say a word. It was beautiful, like he was psyching us out. Then his girlfriend came in, this beautiful surfer girl, with a beer in each pocket, and said, ‘C’mon Jaco, let’s go,’ and he put the bass down and walked out. It was amazing, to have your idol glare you in the eyes. In 1996 I met Johnny Pastorius, Jaco’s eldest son. He’d bought a round of drinks at a Fort Lauderdale bar where a surfer friend of mine worked. He sees the name on the credit card and says, ‘My friend’s a bass player and there’s a guy called Pastorius who’s his biggest influence.’ Johnny says, ‘That’s Jaco, my father.’ A year later I met Johnny and said, You’ve got to make a film about your father – his story is so important. He starts working on one. Years go by and I’m invited onto the project. I realised it’s going to take money, time, passion… It pulled me in. Every year we’d show rough cuts. Six years of hard work. Joni didn’t come on until year four. We kept re-editing, but it made for something very special. The director, Paul Marchand, was amazing. We could have easily created a tragic story but there was so much to celebrate. He wasn’t on this planet long but he made a powerful statement. If there’d been better understanding of his addiction, his bi-polar disorder, there’s a chance he’d still be around – at the time people didn’t understand what was going on. But we wanted the film to be a celebration. Now, young kids approach me and say, ‘I’m now a Jaco Pastorius fan. I went and bought Hejira.’ That’s important to me. It’s the celebration of a true artist.”

Robert Trujillo and Mass Mental play the London Bass Guitar Show at Olympia, March 12-13, when there will be a special screening of Jaco.