Portrait of Tracy

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"Portrait of Tracy" is a composition by legendary bassist Jaco Pastorius. It appears on his landmark self-titled debut album, and it widely recorded as a tribute by bassists such as Joe Ferry, Marcus Miller, Brian Bromberg, and others. It is considered a bass guitar standard, and is often used as a benchmark for a bassist's abilities.

The song is played almost exclusively with natural harmonics, giving it a dreamy, unfamiliar tone for the bass.

The tune starts with a pattern decending in 5ths. Then a Cma9-Gma9-E-C riff twice, the second time with an extended Eb9-E-Cma9-E(b9). The song enters a solo of sorts, complete with complex, somewhat dissonant chord changes. Then resolving into an extended E to Bm lick--very melodic.

The next idea consists of the bass note moving from C-B-Bb-B-C-B-Bb while droning a harmonic D down to A with slight variation to the harmonics the second decent.

An Eb chord sets up a Ab to Gma7 with a large extention. At the end of that section Jaco plays Cma9-Gma9-Bb-F and plays a repetition of the Cma9-Gma9-E-C line after the last E(b9)there is E7(#9) which rings for nearly 10 seconds.

The song has been sampled on a few songs, most notably, SWV's Rain, and Chingy and Tyrese's Pulling Me Back.