Home » Jazz Musicians » Scott LaFaro

Scott LaFaro

Rocco Scott LaFaro (1936-1961) was a musician of the first order, who found his 'voice' in jazz in the mid-1950s. His played the double bass violin, better known today as the acoustic bass to differentiate this instrument from the electric (or electronic) bass. His life was cut short in an automobile accident in the summer of 1961 near Geneva, New York, his home town. Although he performed for only six years (1955-1961), his innovative approach to the bass astounded his contemporaries, and to this day his recorded performances continue to surprise and delight.

Those who have found the Bill Evans Jazz Resource on the Internet know of the profound interplay among Paul Motian, Scott LaFaro and Bill Evans in a jazz trio that for many musicians to this day remains a model of sonority, complexity, and swing. Scott LaFaro's bass playing 'alchemy' (to borrow from an Ornette Coleman recording on which LaFaro performed) propelled Bill Evans to meet the artistic challenge of balance in a jazz trio.

The trios of Art Tatum, Nat Cole, and Oscar Peterson feature the pianist. Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro and Paul Motian were of one voice. The Evans trios that followed in the wake of the tragic death of Scott LaFaro in 1961, continued the search for balanced interplay but, notwithstanding the contributions of Chuck Israels and Larry Bunker, Gary Peacock, Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell and Elliot Zigmund, Marc Johnson and Joe LaBarbera, musicians with technical facility and swing, the pianist's voice remained dominant.

The post-LaFaro trios of Bill Evans achieved maturity and polish, the result of many years of playing together. Evans and LaFaro and Motian played (and recorded) as a trio less than two years, from December 1959 to June 1961. It is the sense of harmonic exploration and discovery, challenge and response, time's ebb and flow, that draws one to listen again and again to Portrait in Jazz, Explorations , Sunday at the Village Vanguard, and Waltz For Debby. These recordings are as fresh today as when they were first made, and together serve as an archetype of the jazz piano trio.

Scott LaFaro's mastery of his chosen instrument began after his 1954 graduation from high school. Although he played bass only six years, LaFaro remains a beacon for jazz bassists.

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. He only took up the double bass the summer before he entered college, since learning a string instrument was required for music majors. About three months into college, LaFaro decided to concentrate on bass.

Bill Evans: The Legendary Trio At Birdland 1960 Revisited

Read "The Legendary Trio At Birdland 1960 Revisited" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
March 7, 2024

Bill Evans' The Legendary Trio at Birdland 1960 is a seminal recording that captures a fleeting moment of jazz brilliance, immortalizing the profound synergy of Evans with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Recorded live at the iconic Birdland Jazz Club in New York City, this album is a vivid snapshot of a group at the peak of its creative powers, navigating the complexities of jazz standards and original compositions with unparalleled grace and fluidity. The trio's ...

Album Review

Bill Evans: The Legendary Trio At Birdland 1960 Revisited

Read "The Legendary Trio At Birdland 1960 Revisited" reviewed by John Eyles

by John Eyles
March 3, 2024

Keen-eyed Bill Evans aficionados will know that this album is the pianist's third in the Revisited series by ezz-thetics, following At The Village Vanguard 1961 Revisited and the double-CD Duos with Jim Hall & Trios '64 & '65 Revisited, both released in 2023. “The Legendary Trio" refers to the threesome of Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, the same group that recorded at the Village Vanguard in 1961. The Legendary Trio was brought to a tragic end ten ...

Liner Notes

Bill Evans: The Legendary Trio At Birdland 1960 Revisited

by Chris May
January 17, 2024

Thank you, Boris Rose. The obsessive New York jazz maverick set out to record every musician of note who performed in the city's clubs from the mid 1940s through the mid 1970s. He must have come close to succeeding. His vast accumulated horde of tapes--today presumed more or less safe, stacked floor to ceiling in a sizeable Bronx basement under the guardianship of his daughter Elaine--is a treasure beyond mere monetary value. Annotated but uncatalogued, there are many hundreds, perhaps ...

Album Review

Bill Evans Trio: At The Village Vanguard 1961 Revisited

Read "At The Village Vanguard 1961 Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 19, 2023

Imagine yourself in Greenwich Village June 25, 1961. You are in attendance at a small pie shaped club called the Village Vanguard run by Max Gordon. This is before it was to be crowned as a jazz holy ground. Sonny Rollins had recorded his famous A Night At The “Village Vanguard" (Blue Note, 1957). John Coltrane would record there in November of 1961 and again in 1966. The spot is a shrine with sessions from legends such as Albert Ayler, ...

Liner Notes

Bill Evans Trio: At The Village Vanguard 1961 Revisited

by Chris May
August 11, 2023

Liner notes generally avoid referencing current affairs, for the good reason that what is front page news when the notes are being written may be gone and forgotten by the time the album is released. But there are exceptional circumstances, and here is one of them. On his father's side, Bill Evans was of Welsh heritage, and on his mother's side, Russian, or rather Ukrainian, the two countries during his lifetime often being conflated as a result ...

Album Review

Bill Evans: Waltz For Debby

Read "Waltz For Debby" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
July 18, 2023

In a very unscientific survey, 9 out of 10 jazz connoisseurs listed Waltz For Debby by the Bill Evans Trio as one of their desert island picks. For more than sixty years it has been a best seller and this reissue, like its companion release Sunday At The Village Vanguard (Craft Recordings, 2023), is part of a newly relaunched Original Jazz Classic series. From the original tapes, both are all-analog masters by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, pressed on 180-gram ...

Book Review

Solid. Life and Death of a Jazz Genius: Scott LaFaro

by Richard J Salvucci
May 3, 2023

Solid. Life and Death of a Jazz Genius: Scott LaFaro Vincenzo Staiano 180 Pages ISBN: 9781470 LuLu2023 It may be an exaggeration to claim there was double bass before Scott LaFaro, and double bass after Scott LaFaro. A modern jazz bassist may say, well, not exactly. Yet reading Vincenzo Staiano's respectful account of LaFaro's art may lead one to conclude just that. In an astonishingly short period of time, LaFaro (and to ...

Birthday