This document provides an introduction and overview of Jade Visions: The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro, a biography of jazz bassist Scott LaFaro written by his sister Helene LaFaro-Fernández. The introduction was written by Gene Lees and provides background on Scott LaFaro's short but influential career as a jazz musician from 1954 until his death in 1961. The book contains chapters on LaFaro's life and upbringing, his musical influences and development, his time playing with major jazz artists such as Chet Baker, Stan Getz, Bill Evans, and Ornette Coleman, and analyses of his musical style and legacy. It includes contributions from several other writers and a comprehensive

1. Jade Visions
The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro
Helene LaFaro-Fernández
with
Chuck Ralston,
Jeff Campbell and Phil Palombi
Foreword by Don Thompson
Introduction by Gene Lees
Number 4 in the North Texas
Lives of Musicians Series
University of North Texas Press
Denton,Texas

2. ©2009 Helene LaFaro-Fernandez
“When Sam Met Scotty” and “Prescott Restoration” by Barrie Kolstein ©2009
Barrie Kolstein
“His Music II” by Jeff Campbell ©2009 Jeff Campbell
“His Music III” by Phil Palombi ©2009 Phil Palombi
“Discography” and “Annotated Bibliography” by Chuck Ralston ©2009 Chuck
Ralston
“Foreword” by Don Thompson ©2009 Don Thompson
“Remembering Scott LaFaro” by Robert Wooley ©2009 Robert Wooley
Introduction by Gene Lees ©2009 University of North Texas Press
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Permissions:
University of North Texas Press
1155 Union Circle #311336
Denton,TX 76203-5017
The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American
National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,z39.48.1984.
Binding materials have been chosen for durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LaFaro-Fernandez, Helene, 1938–
Jade visions : the life and music of Scott LaFaro / by Helene LaFaro-Fernandez ;
introduction by Gene Lees. — 1st ed.
p. cm. — (North Texas lives of musicians series ; no. 4)
Includes discography.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-57441-273-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. LaFaro, Scott. 2. Double bassists—United States—Biography. 3. Jazz musicians—
United States—Biography. I.Title. II. Series: North Texas lives of musicians series ;
no.4.
ML418.L34L34 2009
787.5'165092—dc22
[B]
2009016468
JadeVisions:The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro is Number 4 in the North Texas Lives of
Musicians Series
Interior design by Joseph Parenteau

3. • Contents •
List of Illustrations ix
Foreword xi
by Don Thompson
Preface xv
Acknowledgments xvii
Introduction:Young Mr. LaFaro xxi
by Gene Lees
Prologue 1
1. La Famiglia 3
2. Geneva:The EarlyYears 7
3. Early Influences 17
4. High School Days 25
5. Beginning Bass to Buddy and Baker 41
6. Transposition (1957) 59
7. Working the West Coast (1958) 77
8. Kenton, Goodman, and Monk (1959) 93
9. NewYork: Getz, Coleman, and Evans (1960) 111
10. Realization (1961) 131
11. Last Days 147
12. Aftermath 151
13. His Music I 155
14. His Music II 175
by Jeff Campbell
15. His Music III 201
by Phil Palombi

4. 16. His Legacy 211
Appendix I
Remembering Scott LaFaro 225
by Robert Wooley
Appendix II
When Sam Met Scotty:
A Remembrance of Scott LaFaro 231
by Barrie Kolstein
Appendix III
Prescott Restoration:The LaFaro Legacy 235
by Barrie Kolstein
Discography 249
Compiled by Chuck Ralston
Endnotes 291
Bibliography 299
Compiled and Annotated by Chuck Ralston
Index 315

5. xxi
Introduction
Young Mr. LaFaro
by
Gene Lees
Scott LaFaro was something of a mystery to me. I never
knew him well, and not for long.There was too little time. He
played the bass for only seven years,from the summer of his eigh-
teenth year until just after his twenty-fifth birthday, when he was
killed in an automobile accident, but in that short period he be-
came the most influential bassist of the last half of the twentieth
century, and his echo continues in the work of Dave Holland,
Neal Swainson, Eddie Gomez, Christian McBride, and many
more.In this he was like Jimmy Blanton,who influenced the bass
in terms of its harmonic role, and was dead at twenty-four, in his
case of tuberculosis. One thinks, too, of Charlie Christian, who
died at twenty-six but influenced probably every guitarist who
came after him. He, too, succumbed to tuberculosis.
It was not only LaFaro’s extraordinary technique that set him
apart. He had a lyrical sensibility which reached its pinnacle in
his work in the Bill EvansTrio of the early 1960s, a distinguished

6. 3
• Chapter 1 •
La Famiglia
“Ovington, New Joisey. On toidy, toid and toid.”
(Family joke whenever someone asked
where Scotty and I were born)
Scotty was born Rocco Scott LaFaro in Irvington, a sub-
urb of Newark, New Jersey. Our heritage is what America is all
about—a bit of this, a bit of that.The family stock of our Mom,
Helen Lucille Scott, was Scottish, Irish, and English. Her grand-
parents immigrated as children with their families late in the
nineteenth century. Motherless at an early age, she was raised by
a father who was surprisingly supportive, for the times, of his
daughters’ activities and independence.
Dad, Rocco Joseph LaFaro, was the first generation of his
family born in America. His parents were from the province of
Calabria in the extreme south of the Italian boot. Grandfather
LaFaro was a stonemason by trade, an ice cream maker, and later
a bootlegger to supplement the family income.
Both of our parents’ families ended up settling in the small
town of Geneva in upstate New York in the middle of a lovely
farming area of the Finger Lakes Region. However, their fami-
lies were never acquainted during the years prior to my parents’
­marriage.
Dad’s parents, like many Italians, loved music and opera.They
realized early on that their son, Joe, had an unusual talent.At age

7. 4  JadeVisions:The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro
three he was playing the mandolin in groups with adult musi-
cians and began violin lessons at age five.He was performing with
his teacher and other local professionals soon after. Our cousin
Karmy Crupi-Henke recalls her mom, Dad’s sister Mamie, telling
her that practically the only memory she had of Dad as a young
boy was hearing him practicing his violin in another room all the
time,“even when the rest of the family was at dinner.” His belief
in the value of disciplined practice became deeply ingrained and
he would pass this belief on to Scotty in the years to come.
At age twelve he was sent to Ithaca Conservatory (now Col-
lege) of Music to study violin, where he was a student of Otakar
Sevcik,1
the renowned violin teacher from Prague. When Dad
was eighteen and finishing up his last year at the conservatory,
he and his friends decided to put aside their classical training and
set their sights on the exciting big band and big money scene in
New York City they were hearing so much about. Shortly after
graduation he hit the road with the big name bands and stars of
the twenties: Ed Kirkeby, the Dorsey Brothers, Smith Ballew, the
California Ramblers, PaulWhiteman, Bea Lillie, and RudyVallee.
Kirkeby and the Dorseys were playing what was called NewYork
Jazz in its earliest days. Paul Whiteman was presenting Gersh-
win’s “Rhapsody in Blue” at his concert titled “An Experiment
in Modern Music.”
Though formally trained in the classics and forever the lover
of the symphony and opera, Dad also loved jazz from the start.
Over the years he kept up with all the major jazz players, took
Scotty (and sometimes me) to concerts nearby,and shared a lot of
discussions about jazz with him.
It was a stint with an orchestra from CBS Radio that brought
Dad back to Geneva to play at a debutante ball in 1934.Mom was
most certainly not a deb, but her father wanted his three daugh-
ters to hear this orchestra from NewYork,so they dropped by the

8. La Famiglia  5
dance to catch a bit of music.That was when Dad met Helen Lu-
cille Scott,the middle daughter of a widower and twelve years his
junior.She was still in high school but this short meeting between
sets was the beginning of a relationship that continued by cor-
respondence and the occasional visit for the next year. Scotty and
I used to tease Mom that she was the original groupie.On March
30, 1935, Helen turned eighteen, and on April twelfth, less than
two weeks later and with the blessing of both families, they were
married at the parsonage of the local Methodist minister. The
young couple left immediately for New York City. They even-
tually rented a house across the river in Irvington, New Jersey,
where Scotty was born on April 3, 1936. I followed on January
28, 1938.
“Sister,” Scotty, nearly two, uttered as he pointed to the baby
tightly wrapped in a receiving blanket that February morning.
And so Sister it was.The beginning was the future writ large.The
appellation given to me by Scotty when I was brought home
from the hospital was how I was known and what everyone called
me—parents, all relatives, friends and acquaintances.We became
“Scotty and Sister,” almost always spoken to and about as one
during our early years.As I grew,“Sister” became “Sis.” Only the
occasional authority figure in our lives ever used my given name,
Helene.
In those early years we were surrounded by Dad’s many
friends and fellow musicians: college cronies he came down to
the city with and newer friends met on gigs.They’d gather at our
home for dinner and backyard suppers or at the beach in sum-
mer. And family? There was always family. Relatives from both
sides. At first, Dad’s sisters came to help young Helen with the
work of motherhood. Later, Mom’s two sisters,Aunts Ginny and
Elsie,also chose to live in Jersey in nearby East Orange while they
made their careers in New York City. Granddad Scott would be

9. 6  JadeVisions:The Life and Music of Scott LaFaro
there often to spend time with his three daughters.The pattern
was set early—an interdependent, close, supportive family. Scotty
and I bonded with all these family members and shared special
relationships with all of them throughout our lives.
WWII slowed the music scene in NewYork.The mood of the
nation was changing, growing somber. It wasn’t a time for par-
ties and hot jazz and soirees with society orchestras. Folks had to
tighten their belts, and there was talk of shortages and ­rationing.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor when the United States
entered the war, Dad tried to enlist with his many friends in
the hope of being assigned to one of the services’ entertainment
units.He was thirty-six and deemed too old.He also had flat feet,
which at that time was considered undesirable for the military.
Reluctantly, he decided to take his young family back to their
hometown and into the bosom of the extended family. So Mom
and Dad returned to Geneva in 1942, at least for the duration of
the war.

10. 315
A
Adams, Pepper, 96
Allen, Steve, 60, 80
Allen,Woody, 223
Altoon, John, 87
Anzalone,Valentine, 32
Arrival ofVictor Feldman,The, 77, 115,
170, 172, 187, 220
Art Center College,The, 87, 88
B
Bahn, Dr. Cordell, 13
Bailey, Pearl, 97
Baker, Chet, 32, 53–55, 59–61, 67,
70, 95, 101,149, 176, 223
Barbe, John, 52
Bartok, Bela, 100–1, 149, 160
Basin Street East, xxvii, xxviii, 102
Bechet, Sidney, 96
Belafonte, Harry, 83
Belhurst, 12–15, 36, 41, 56; Scott
plays with orchestra of, 33, 35, 48
Bellison, Luis, 97
Bennett, Robert, 28, 29, 47, 140
Bennett,Tony, 34, 69
Benton,Walter, 109
Berk, Dick, 79, 221
Berliner, Paul, 76
Berzinsky, Dave, xix
Beverly Kelly Sings with the Pat Moran
Trio, 91, 180
Bill Evans: How My Heart Sings, 101,
133, 158
Birdland, 60, 61, 71, 112–15, 120
Black Hawk,The, 79, 80, 86, 135–36
Blackwell, Ed, 120–21, 131, 142, 189,
190
Blanton, Jimmy, xi, xxi, xxii, 68, 69,
81, 98, 157, 172, 221, 223
Bley, Paul, 65, 70, 83, 91
Blue Note,The, 99
Booker Little, 114
Broadway Bit,The, 94, 183
Bromberg, Brian, 171–72, 212
Brown, Cecelia, xxiii, 68
Brown, Gail (Kirk), 19, 35, 38, 226
Brown, Godfrey (“Brownie”), 19, 26,
27, 30, 36, 38, 225–26
Brown, Ray, xi, xxii, xxiii, xxvi, 68,
75, 76, 141, 154, 172, 177, 220
Brubeck, Dave, 32
Bruce, Jack, 73, 80,
Bruce, Lenny, 70, 83, 87
Bunker, Larry, 81, 82
Butler, Frank, 178, 190
C
CalTjader/Stan Getz Sextet. See Stan
Getz/CalTjader Sextet
Campbell, Jeff, xviii
Catalano, Billy, 95
Cellar,The, 90, 186
Index
Page numbers for illustrations are in italics.