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Last couple of nights this week I spent some of my practice time touching base with Joe Pass. Sadly, I never saw Joe play live. But I've been inspired by him since my early twenties when I got albums like Intercontinental and the Virtuoso series or some of them including the first. I recall playing along and kind of hanging with the blues at the time but being floored by his chord melody work on many of the other songs. That was some long time ago now.
But what I was doing this week included listening to Joe's "instructional" tapes on playing the blues and on jazz improvisation and his technical approach. I always feel like I come away with some new insight, in this case into some substitution relationships especially. But there is always something to learn from his take on jazz.
I feel a kinship with Joe in terms of his style and approach to solo playing and I try to learn from his bebop excursions. But lately I'm wondering if my young adult idol has been surpassed by some new top guns.
I know that jazz guitar is not about who is "the best". There are many brilliant players. But has Joe's style become obsolete or has it become surpassed by someone new and more contemporary? What are his strengths and his weaknesses? I'm curious what you all think, but I will say that I miss Joe Pass. And if he is obsolete, maybe that is a sign that I am, too.
Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it all.....
Last edited by targuit; 06-04-2015 at 04:54 AM.
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06-04-2015 04:51 AM
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I don't think Joe is obsolete. Sure, he really played only in the bebop style, but he was one of the best at it. And that style still forms the main basis for what you need to learn to play jazz, I believe.
I'm talking here about his single-note playing with a group, e.g. check out 'For Django' or the 'Catch Me' sessions for state-of-the-art examples. The first jazz guitar solo I transcribed was 'Just Friends' from 'Catch Me' and I virtually learned the basic bop language from that one solo.
Similarly, Joe's solo (unaccompanied) playing is unlikely to be surpassed, and anyone who wants to play solo guitar should learn from it, even if they want to move beyond his bebop-based approach.
I was lucky to see Joe several times at Ronnie Scotts and he was great. Something about seeing him live gave his solo playing an added excitement which perhaps you don't get from the recordings alone.
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martin taylor to me seems to be a player who has carried on joe pass' solo style to me.
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No more than Bach or any other iconic musical figure would ever be considered obsolete
David
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no, players like pass or wes will never be obsolete. Is Joe's playing en-vogue today? probably not but neither is any jazz so do what your heart and ears call to you.
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negatory good buddy
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Playing like this will never be obsolete:
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Obsolete just like Van Gogh
I would say "reflective of a different time" might be accurate. But he'll be a masterclass in the sort of baseline common practice jazz guitar he helped define. His solo guitar to me is what guitarists think of when they say the phrase "solo jazz guitar." Yes of course there are people who built on what joe did but that's just it ... They built on what Joe already did.
I'm obviously no historian but I'd put his solo playing on par with the single notes of Wes or the hot band playing of Freddie Green. Their names are now synonymous with those aspects of the guitars tradition. Whether or not people play like them, they've forced people to learn how to play like them before they can really play like themselves.
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I'm happy to read the tenor of these replies regarding Joe, given that I have remained a great fan since I first heard him play in the Sixties. I cannot for the life of me figure out how I never caught him at any live gigs, though I was abroad in Europe for nearly a decade in the mid-Seventies till late Eighties when he was performing at his peak of popularity.
I'm not questioning so much Joe's legacy as whether his playing style is in vogue today or whether there is more of a shift to a different style. My own approach to playing solo incorporates vocals as well as solo or instrumental guitar, so I find a great affinity for his style, particularly his later years apart from the fact that if there was singing at his gigs it was usually someone like Ella. There is a kind of great divide between the highly complex Miles Davis inspired compositions and the previous forty plus year era when jazz was a significant part of the popular music contemporary social scene. So if you are playing a solo version of a Jerome Kern or Harold Arlen song, it is a far different affair than Davis' Pee Wee, as Jeff linked on another thread. Yet in focusing on that earlier era as a soloist, I sometimes feel that I'm looking too much in the rear view mirror rather than ahead.
To put it another way my teenage son often "complains" that the music I play the most is "old stuff". But today's contemporary music just doesn't offer enough substance to me, like musical fast food versus the gourmet stuff of yesteryear. And this aging out of the scene seems to suggest I would have more success playing to an "assisted living" crowd than the twenty and thirty years olds who want just Keith Urban. I like some of his songs, too, but I'm starting to feel funny singing his stuff at my age. Kind of like a 'dirty old man'. Whether I am I or not is perhaps a good question....
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FWIW, around here, we're regarded as the "old heads", as in "I'm gigging tonight with the old heads." I'm not sure what they call the alternative ("New heads"? I don't think so; I think that's just called "I'm gigging tonight"). I'm happy to be in the former group.
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Because he actually plays the changes?
ill take that over atonal noodling any day.
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what's that a put down of?
Originally Posted by vintagelove
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Originally Posted by jzucker
Ill mention a player I really like and respect. Tim Miller, great player, great new vocabulary, I could go on for a page....
He's not going to make JP obsolete. His music is just not enjoyable to average folks (not people like us) which is ultimately, for better or worse, going to determine a musicians place in history. JP will always sound like great music, because it is.
Not to mention the whole world of capturing music has changed. The whole ability to go back and fix things, do a hundred takes until you get that perfect one, etc, has changed the way people think about making music. As a result, a little of that spontaneous magic is lost.
How many folks would show up at the studio with a guitar and a polytone, sit down, bust out virtuoso in what most accounts say is one take a tune. Then have the engineer say, hey man I'm so sorry but we lost the amp tracks. How many artists today would say, ah no problem, put it out. I am thinking not many....
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Those that either don't play the changes, or play them in a way that makes the melody difficult to follow, and those artists know who they are! Originally Posted by jzucker
Just a difference of opinion regarding what is pleasing to listen to, that's all.
I have actually been listening much more to JP this week, and I love his more uptempo tunes. The ballads, not so much in most cases.
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i have to talked to a number of great players who have either explicitly or implicitly stated that they tried very hard to get away from Joe Pass on their own solo guitar playing -- not because they dislike it (au contraire...) but because he's such a dominating presence in the history of solo jazz guitar that it's almost suffocating.
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I think to me what makes Pass stand out is that his solo guitar playing is jazz. He's improvising, he's taking risks. It's bebop and there are long eighth note phrases. He's rarely playing an arrangement. It seems like he has an infinite capacity to improvise with solo guitar.
So many of the modern guys play very beautifully, but little of it sounds like jazz to me. It's like a separate genre of jazz - solo guitar jazz. Joe Pass always sounded like a rhythm section could've dropped in at any time and it would just keep going without a hitch.
As far as I'm concerned he's the only real bebop solo guitarist.
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I think Jimmy Bruno is very much in the same mould as Joe Pass. His solo guitar excursions are something to behold. Rhythm, moving basslines, melody, counter melody all happening at the same time.
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This thread touches on things I've thought about quite a bit. To date myself, I'm 64, been playing the guitar since I was 12. Never stopped, it's been an unbroken thread in my otherwise tattered at times life. I was fortunate to hear Joe Pass play twice in Cleveland in the 70's. There have been two guitarist who have had a major impact on my playing, Joe Pass and Doc Watson. Probably an incongruous pairing but that's my story. I still work as a guitarist/ singer and it's Joe's extraordinary comping that inspires my own accompaniment. Doc's influence is the total honesty and truth of his playing. I am of possibly the first generation to which music has been ubiquitous. I have those feelings at times of being a "dinosaur". What are you gonna do? Too many people nowadays have an attitude about music, they say of it, "my music". What does that mean? And by the way, I never hear that coming from the lips of musicians.
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Amen brothers, Joe was one of the first jazz players I enjoyed.
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Just about what I was about to say. Originally Posted by TruthHertz
I don't really like Joe Pass, but respect his contributions to the music. Other things came out after him that were more modern and relevant, but people still listen to Beethoven and Charlie Parker.
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If he were around to do a concert, I would be there in a heartbeat. I know it sounds like the guitar player in me, but I bet he could still command an audience and not change a thing about his playing.
Remember, there are still plenty of great guitarists carrying on Django's legacy and they don't sound obsolete to me.
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Joe's ensemble playing and his solo playing were both complete artistic expressions and, as such, neither is obsolete. The contemporary approach to jazz guitar (I am here thinking players like Rosenwinkel, Kreisberg, Monder, etc.) is different but certainly does not invalidate Pass- I would bet that all three of those guys have a stack of Joe Pass CDs at home.
I was listening to some of Pete Bernstein's solo playing and was struck by how influenced by Monk he has become. I don't know that I enjoy the more Monk-ish Bernstein quite as much (maybe it's just a little less accessible) but it is a bold development in his playing.
Jim Hall called Pass the most complete jazz guitarist ever. I have to agree.
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How can Joe Pass be obsolete when he has his own icon!
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Great Thread.
My Opinion, Joe will never be obsolete, but unfortunately, he will never be popular among the mainstream. In fact, I read that while he was in Synanon, he further developed the "Joe Pass" style. Toward the end of rehab, he was confronted by a fellow patient/musician who told him that he should record some solo "virtuoso type" albums. Apparently, Joe's response was, "who would ever buy this stuff?"
His brilliance will always be appreciated by those of us who understand it. Just like Johnny Smith.
But the more time goes by, the less you will hear of him. Its bound to happen. Heck, I feel its happening right now with Elvis Presley. Never thought I'd see that in my lifetime.
Joe D
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Jackson Pollack made the statement in the late 40s I believe that all modern painters of his generation had to either
go around, through or over and under Picasso. The same can be said of any modern jazz guitarist regarding Joe Pass.
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