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Joe Pass

 
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mel1



Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 10:50 pm    Post subject: Joe Pass Reply with quote

I know we could go on and on about various guitarist but is anyone a Joe Pass fan?

What he does is a little different from the other palyers mentioned since he plays fingerstyle and also flat pick often within the same song. He seems to have the approach of a piano player.

In listening to some of his solo blues performaces one song will have several elements such as single line soloing, walking bass, chord accompliment, horn section call and response in a continuous flow. Almost a complete lesson in jazz or swing blues playing.

He seems to be a complete guitarist playing as a duo with singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and playing mellow ballads solo style. He also swings within a band setting.

He also seems human since you can sometimes hear the timing wavier with an occasional flurb of a note. With the amount of guitar he is playing this does not take away from his performance
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Mark
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Joined: 26 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Tue May 27, 2008 11:27 pm    Post subject: Re: Joe Pass Reply with quote

mel1 wrote:
I know we could go on and on about various guitarist but is anyone a Joe Pass fan?


My hand's up! Wink I don't know... I must have at least a 25-30 Pass recordings in my collection, yet the amazing thing is that Joe was SO prolific that there's much more out there. As a matter of fact, when it comes to recording classic standards, he might be at the top of the heap in terms of sheer volume.

Among other things, Joe was probably the one player who influenced and inspired me most to transfer my jazz bass knowledge to the guitar and combine those concepts with chords, plus I love the fact that he was an "ear" player who avoided scales and classroom theory rhetoric like the plague.

Since my main jazz mentor has always been the late piano legend Oscar Peterson, I especially enjoyed the work that they did together, but really... it's all good. I've got more to say, but I'll let others chime in and check back later. Thanks for starting this topic. All for now...

- Mark
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Dean



Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 287
Location: California

PostPosted: Wed May 28, 2008 5:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't know if my avatar is to obvious or not.haha Got to meet him before he passed.He was still a kid inside.He asked why do all the guitar players make all those faces when they play,and started making a bunch of funny faces.He is one of the tops in jazz,and when he played ,he made it look easy...just laid back and ripping.
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thaydon



Joined: 31 Mar 2007
Posts: 80
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2008 3:58 pm    Post subject: Joe Pass Reply with quote

Probably my most favorite jazz concerts were Joe Pass-solo around 1981 and Miles Davis/Dexter Gordon at the Hollywood Bowl in 1987.
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Gorecki
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Joined: 24 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: Thu May 29, 2008 5:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Joe's definitely in my top 1% favored guitar players. Only thing odd is I never did get into much of his solo guitar playing, like the coveted 'Virtuoso' release. Guess because much of the material is jazz ballads (which bore me) because even solo up tempo material is fine to me. Definitely love all his combo work. I have a couple with Herbie Ellis I like a lot.
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Mark
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PostPosted: Fri May 30, 2008 8:47 am    Post subject: Re: Virtuoso Releases Reply with quote

Gorecki wrote:
Joe's definitely in my top 1% favored guitar players. Only thing odd is I never did get into much of his solo guitar playing, like the coveted 'Virtuoso' release. Guess because much of the material is jazz ballads (which bore me) because even solo up tempo material is fine to me. Definitely love all his combo work. I have a couple with Herbie Ellis I like a lot.


Brian,

I'm with you regarding those solo Joe Pass releases, but not so much because there are ballads per se. After all, in the hands of a blues-oriented powerhouse like the late Oscar Peterson, any ballad could come across like Stormy Monday. That's what I learned from OP and what I'm always going for on a ballad, although I do like to mix in some changes work along the way.

It was that acoustic archtop tone on those 3-4 Pablo releases that never appealed to me when compared with his earlier and later recordings. I mean... great playing and certainly worth transcribing and learning, but I would have preferred a smoother tone and hearing him in an ensemble setting instead.

Of the earlier recordings, I'd highly recommend the stuff that Joe did on Pacific Jazz, and the Vestapol videos are a "must have" for any Pass fan. Speaking of books, the best one on JP is from Wolf Marshall (surprise, surprise Wink ). Here's a paragraph from his introductory notes:

"As a youth I was fortunate to have seen Joe Pass countless times at various night club gigs and concerts in LA. He was the town's leading jazz player in the 1970s, and every performance was special and unique. A true improviser, Pass routinely called tunes off the top of his head and spontaneously created masterpieces before the eyes and ears of an appreciative audience. These moments are permanently etched in my memory. I was luckier still to have studied briefly with Joe then, and some of what he taught me is in this book. His improvisational approach, advanced harmonic concepts, and chord style are subjects he was eager to discuss and share, yet his mode of expression was hardly disciplined, pedantic, or scholarly. Nevertheless, Joe was a great communicator...if you listened. He spoke, as in performance, through his instrument - spontaneously, casually, and with humor and great feeling, punctuating his musical discourse with a favorite comment: 'Stop me when you hear something you like.' Needless to say, he got stopped a lot."

- Mark
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kbgtr001



Joined: 04 May 2007
Posts: 122

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 5:48 am    Post subject: Re: Virtuoso Releases Reply with quote

Mark wrote:
It was that acoustic archtop tone on those 3-4 Pablo releases that never appealed to me when compared with his earlier and later recordings. I mean... great playing and certainly worth transcribing and learning, but I would have preferred a smoother tone and hearing him in an ensemble setting instead.

Of the earlier recordings, I'd highly recommend the stuff that Joe did on Pacific Jazz, and the Vestapol videos are a "must have" for any Pass fan.


Mark,

I went digging through my vinyl collection and
I found three 'ensemble' recordings on the Pablo label ;

'Quadrant' with Joe Pass, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown and Mickey Roker
now available on CD from OJC.

'All Too Soon, Quadrant toasts Duke Ellington' with Joe Pass, Milt Jackson, Ray Brown and Mickey Roker

'The Big 3' with Milt Jackson, Joe Pass, and Ray Brown
also available on CD from OJC.

My vinyl is in great shape, but I don't have
a turntable here in my project studio.

Also on the Pablo vinyl label;

'Two For The Road' - Joe Pass, Herb Ellis


Kb
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Don MacArthur



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 50

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 1:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I probably do not have as many recordings of Joe Pass as others in this post. I have a couple CDs, books w/ CDs. I really dig his playing on the Legends of Jazz Guitar DVD series. At one time I completely memorized one of his renditions of Joe's Blues - all 8 minutes of it!! I think we all should incorporate some of Joe Pass' ideas into our own playing.

Don
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Mark
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PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 5:05 pm    Post subject: Learning from Joe Reply with quote

Don MacArthur wrote:
I think we all should incorporate some of Joe Pass' ideas into our own playing.


Don,

Agreed, because I look at every one of my influences, large or small, and can point to something that I learned from them that is now a part of the player/composer I am today. Remove any one of those elements and I wouldn't feel complete.

More on Joe...

Years ago I taught a guy who was a huge fan of both Benson and Pass. He was working at a record store in SoCal in the 70's, and one day, at about closing time, who pulls up in his Mercedes and drops in but Joe Pass, cigar and all. Smile

So Rick casually puts up the CLOSED sign so he could hang with Pass for awhile. He told me that Joe bought a half-dozen LPs that day, and every one of them was a George Benson release. This was right after GB's success with Breezin'. I think one of the amazing things about Joe was his desire to continue evolving and growing as a player, as opposed to getting set in his ways.

Well, he was obviously curious about GB's work, and it wasn't coincidental that his "Whitestone" release (Pablo) was reflective of what he picked up from George. It was just hip enough that at first I didn't recognize that it was Joe when I heard the stuff on the radio. The more I listened the more I realized that it was him, but that he had simply incorporated new ideas into his work.

This gets back to your point about learning something from Pass and my statement about learning even a little bit from anyone, because that's what the great players did, too. All for now...

- Mark
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mel1



Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Sat May 31, 2008 11:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Whitestone CD does appear to be Joe's commercial smooth jazz effort. He has the smooth jazz sound. In my opinion it is unfortunate that he does not have any memorable arrangements on that CD. If he had the arrangementw that Benson had on Breezin who knows, for better or worst he may have been recognized by a younger group of listeners.

Although we all like to hear players burn on up tempo tunes, a jazz player who cannot play tastefully on a ballad is in my opinion in the same category as the jazz player who has not studied the blues.

It is an art to be able to create when the player is out front with no driving rhythm to ride on. A player's skill can be readily assessed when he is playing a ballad. I do not know of any of the major players who are not great ballad players. I it is necessary to study and be proficient at playing ballads since a good part of the jazz repetoire a least in the past was ballads.
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Dean



Joined: 19 Apr 2007
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Location: California

PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've had the good fortune to see a lot of these guys play....They are so smooth and laid back,and then you get a transcript and try to play some of it.It's ripping a mile a min.Those licks are fast,and from one end of the neck to the other.The timing and length of the notes have to be dead on,you know the feeling.One day ,I am going to be that guy.
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Dave Illig



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PostPosted: Thu Jul 31, 2008 3:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Joe rocks! How many players can go from burning with Oscar to smoothing it as he did on Whitestone. He had BIG EARS!

Dave
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