Adlib, April 2003

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Editor-in-chief of Adlib magazine, Yoshio Matsushita, was a personal friend and great admirer of Jaco's, which is evident by Adlib's second cover featuring Jaco in the last seven months. And for this latest edition, Yoshio commissioned the director of Roving Spirits, Masahiro Tomitani, to visit me in Fort Lauderdale to check out "Portrait Of Jaco - The Early Years," and to get an up-close look at the neighborhoods, hangs, and nightclubs that Jaco grew up playing in. April's edition features an 11-page exposé about "POJ," as well as highlights of Masahiro Tamitani's trip to South Florida.

Arriving in Miami on February 7th, Masahiro was in for quite an adventure. After granting his initial requests to visit Jaco's grave, and Northeast high school, I thought I would take him deep into the hood for some real history, an impromptu visit to the all-black Downbeat Club. The Downbeat is the club where Jaco was baptized with "funk" in the late 60's while jamming with groups like Frankie Williams & the Rocketeers, and "Little Beaver." This experience is always a rewarding one because literally, this place hasn't changed a bit! It was late in the afternoon, but we were lucky enough to catch the tail end of a Saturday afternoon BBQ! Many of the old timers were there and it was a great and unexpected treat for me as much as it was for Mr. Tomitani. It wasn't long after getting there that he made the following observation in broken English, "I am sure first time Japanese come Downbeat!" Remember, this is South Florida, not New York! I'm pretty confident that this Florida trip will provide a wealth of memories for Masahiro, and top of the list has to be his eating barbecued alligator and raccoon at the Downbeat.

As I mentioned, the primary reason for Masahiro coming to Florida was to meet with me, and preview "Portrait of Jaco - The Early Years." So, the following evening after a cordial dinner, I set aside some quality time for Masahiro to be able to take it all in, and was very eager for his opinion. He seemed to be totally enthralled, so I allowed both CDs to play back-to-back, over two and a half hours. His first response was that "POJ" was far more diverse than he had expected. And his reaction seemed profound in a way because his eyes possessed this urgency as he began to stress the need for me to produce a translation booklet for the Japanese. He was very moved by the Portrait's overall force and collective spirit, and after realizing how extremely personal it was, he was very concerned that the Japanese fans would not be able to appreciate some of the most sensitive and important aspects of it's content. I asked him if he thought I should edit a Japanese version without the spoken words, or very little. His response was immediate, and emotional. "NO! It is perfection! Only need Japanese translation!" And while reminding me that the Japanese have been long standing fans of Jaco's, it all of a sudden dawned on me that it would actually be disrespectful to offer such a comprehensive work on Jaco and not translate a version into Japanese. So, the decision was made right there and then. In addition to the 'Original' English version, I was now going to produce a complete translation booklet of all the text and spoken words for the Japanese fans to help them more appreciate 'POJ.' Containing some 27,000 words, this was not to be an easy proposition, but my relationship with Yoshio Matsushita and Masahiro provided me access to the top translator in Japan, and I was back to work. Like everything else along the way, I felt that this last minute change, inspired by Masahiro Tamitani, was one more quality decision to make the project better.

Now, after a tedious two months of correspondence working hard to assure that the Japanese booklet will perfectly match up with the American version, the translation process is complete. The Japanese version will now come with a complete 'Original' version in English, and an additional 74-page translation booklet in Japanese.

"Portrait of Jaco - The Early Years" now available at cdbaby.com.