2005 · Album
1960
Note: No official LaFaro leader album titled '1960' exists in verified discography
Scott LaFaro's Year of Invention
LaFaro plays bass like a conversation partner, not a timekeeper—and that changes everything.
Scott LaFaro didn't record an album called "1960," and I want to be straight with you about that. There's no official LaFaro leader date from that year in the standard discography. What exists are his performances with Bill Evans and others during this period—recordings that show a bassist already rewriting the rules of what a bass could do in a jazz trio. If you're looking for LaFaro's documented work, you're finding him mostly through the Evans trio sessions and guest appearances, not under his own name as a bandleader.
What matters is this: by 1960, LaFaro had already figured out something fundamental. He wasn't playing walking basslines or staying out of the way. Instead, he was improvising countermelodies that weaved through the piano and drums, creating this three-way conversation where no instrument was just holding down the fort. Listen to the Evans trio records from this era and you hear LaFaro doing things that made other bassists stop and listen. He had speed, harmonic awareness, and an ear for space. He knew when to lock in and when to float.
If you're serious about understanding LaFaro, you need to hear him in context with Evans and drummer Paul Motian on Sunday at the Village Vanguard (1961) and Waltz for Debby (1961). Those sessions captured what he'd been developing. His death in 1961 at 25 cut short a career that had barely begun, which is why every recorded moment matters. Start there if you want to understand why he changed the instrument.
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