McLaughlin: (laughs) Yes indeed, the Trio of Doom. That trio was unbelievable. It was amazing. When they were on it was unbelievable to play with those guys. Anyway, rehearsals were phenomenal. We had only three tunes that we were going to play (at the historic Havana Jam in Cuba). So we went down to Havana and we had a tune each. We started off with my tune, "The Dark Prince," which was a kind of blues in Cminor with some altered changes. But the thing is, Jaco altered everything. He turned his amp up to 11 and started to play A major, which is like a little far away from C minor...and unbelievably loud! So we start to play the tune, Tony's looking at me, I'm looking at Tony and it's like, "What the ****'" And in the meantime Jaco's upfront with the bass between his legs, doing his thing...it was almost like Jimi Hendrix. And the whole set went like that. When we finished the set, I was so angry at Jaco. Tony too. And we walked off stage and Tony was already up and running to the bathroom...he was about to throw up. Anyway, Jaco came down and said, "Oh, man, you bad mother!" And I said, "What' You have the nerve to speak to me after this travesty on stage. I don't even want to see your face, I don't want to hear you, I don't want to see you." And it all came out, and in about 15 minutes later it was fine. But Tony couldn't get it out, right' And it was such a farce. Anyway, CBS called me about two weeks later and said, "So, we're going to put it out." And I said, "You're going to put what out' You're not going to put that out. You put it out over my dead body. That's terrible." So they asked if we wanted to re-record it over at Columbia Studios on 52nd Street. So we all went into the great CBS Studio on 52nd Street where we did all those great things with Miles -- In A Silent Way, Bitches Brew and all of that. So we start re-recording the tunes and in the meantime, Tony's not looking at Jaco. I mean, forget about speaking, he's not even looking at him. And Jaco's already very nervous. So we start playing and we did my tune again. So we do one take and we go in the control room to listen back and Jaco says, "Well, I think we can do it better." And all of a sudden Tony jumps in front of Jaco and says, "Better' Better, mother******'!!" He pushed Jaco up against the wall. I had never seen Tony angry but that was like a little volcano action, man, I tell you. And Jaco's like..."Hey man, I'm sorry, man, I'm sorry." Tony didn't hit 'em or anything, but when Tony got mad you just get out of the way. He had Jaco up against the wall and Jaco was like apologizing profusely. He knew he ****ed up bigtime. So after 10 minutes of Tony blasting him with both barrels, Tony went into the studio and destroyed his drumkit. (laughter). And I said, "You gotta record with this!" He destroyed his kit and walked out of the studio and that was it. What a shame. But hey, who's perfect in this world' But I told Jaco off right away back in Havana. I got rid of all the rats and snakes right off the stage, but Tony had it balling up, stewing around there for a while for he finally exploded. He always had difficulty with getting it right out. So yeah...Jaco was crazy, but what a player! He was too much. Boy I miss him. I miss Tony too. What a tragedy.
(From here because I'm old and I can't tell if tumblr's source thingy is working with anymore.)
