Bob Moses first played with Jaco in the trio with Pat Metheny

in the mid 70's. Later he filled in for Peter Erskine on a few

Word of Mouth gigs.

Venue - Tipperary’s, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Date - December 31, 1981

I was down in Florida vacationing with my woman at the time. So we drove down to visit Jaco’s brother Gregory, who had a place on Sanibel, which is in western Florida. Beautiful.  It’s on the Gulf coast. It was the day before New Years Eve and we were about to head back North. And Jaco calls Gregory and Gregory says, " Hey, you know who’s here? Bob Moses", and Jaco says "Bob Moses here in Florida, no? Put him on the phone. Hey man, you want to play a New Years Eve gig with me?" And I said, "Well we were about to head back today". Jaco says, "Oh come on man, play a New Years Eve gig, it’ll be great man". So I ask my woman " Hey do you mind if we stay another day? We’ll have to go across the state to the eastern part, add three hours to our route?" "Ok Jaco, sure we’ll do a gig."

So he gave me directions to his pad and he said "be there tomorrow at 5:00". We arrived at his house at the time we we’re suppose to and nobody was there. At first I wasn’t even sure if I was in the right place but then I looked a little more closely and he had a big acoustic bass, just out on the lawn, no case, nobody home, this hugely expensive bass just laying on the lawn, and I said this must be Jaco’s place. (Laughs)   The other thing that gave it away was I looked up in the trees and there were monkeys in the trees eating grapefruits. I thought man are there monkeys in South Florida? I didn’t know that. I started looking at all the other houses and didn’t see any monkeys but at Jaco’s pad there were monkeys in the trees so I thought this is obviously the right place. (Laughs)  But he wasn’t there, so we said lets go get something to eat, which we did and came back maybe about 6:30-7:00.

When we did Jaco was there. So I say "So Jaco, tell me what’s up with this gig?"  And he goes "Gig?"  So I say  "You told me we we’re going to play a New Years Eve gig".  He goes to me " That’s a great idea". (Laughs)  So at this time I’m starting to get a little pissed. He was so charming that he could get away with.  I loved him, people loved him, so we would give him a lot of slack, but at that point I started saying  "Man Jaco, come on. I changed my whole plans; we would already be half way back home by now. We came across the state; you told me there was a New Years gig". And he gave me this look, like he was really hurt, like I had just put a knife in his heart. He says, " Have I ever told you something I would do, and I didn’t do it? Have I ever lied to you?" And the thing was he never did. He says, " If I told you there was a New Years gig, there’s going to be a New Years gig". He’s all hurt right? Like how dare I suggest that he wouldn’t live up to his thing? (Laughs)

Do you know how far in advance New Year gigs are booked? (Laughs)  It’s like 7:00. So he says, "Wait here". About an hour later he comes back and says, "I got us a gig". I can only guess he walked into the first bar he saw and said " I am the greatest bass player in the world, and I have the greatest band in the world. How would you like to have the greatest band in the world play in your club?"  So he got somebody to say "Yeah sure, why not."  So the gig is at this kind of Irish pub called Tipperary’s, in a shopping mall in Fort Lauderdale. (Laughs)  This is our New Years gig. So I said, "Who’s in the band?" and he said, "It’s going to be a trio, you, me and Othello".  Pans, drums, and bass. Definitely not your typical New Years band, right? And he says " Othello’s gonna come over, we gotta rehearse".  I say "Shouldn’t we be going, its like 8:30?"  He says " Don’t worry, we’re cool".

Othello comes over and the rehearsal consisted of Jaco showing him how to play on the pans It’s a Long Way to Tipperary, cause that’s the name of the bar, right?  Othello probably never heard that tune, he’s from Trinidad, they don’t have any tunes that corny in Trinidad. So we played It’s a Long Way to Tipperary with a samba beat, and he asked Othello, " Do you remember how to play Giant Steps? Ok? Rehearsal's over".   So we got two tunes, Tipperary and Giant Steps. (Laughs)

So I remember we went to this bar and we played and the music was great. It was always great when we played with Jaco. I think he played that Zawinul tune Mercy, Mercy, Mercy. It was beautiful; I was crying it was so beautiful. But the people in this bar were looking at us like... Othello was black, Jaco was long hair, looking hippie, at that time I was probably long hair. So some guy with the leather jacket and American flag sewn on the sleeve, a real trucker looking guy, is looking at us going "fucking hippie music".  So Jaco turned the amp up to 10, like ears bleeding loud, and played his version of Amerika. And the guy was speechless, there was nothing he could say to that, he just like hit him over the head, like "You gonna give me some patriotic shit? Here's some patriotic shit, take this".

I’ll tell you we were lucky we got out of that place alive.

Jeroen from the Netherlands was kind enough to send a picture of the infamous club.