The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by zdub
    Got some examples? Keep them to "tastier", not "more technically difficult". I'm sure that others would be interested as well.
    Surely someone like Jens Larsen has assimilated the styles of all the great players that have gone before us and is a monster player? Great tone, smooth as butter, keeping the tradition alive and helping others in the process.

    I'm sure he would be the modest first to say he can't be compared to the greatness of someone like Wes, but realistically, eyes shut and in an AB comparison, he's holding his own at least and arguably more versatile.

    That kind of knowledge was kept very close to a select few chests in the days when livelihoods depended on it.

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  3. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by padraig
    Surely someone like Jens Larsen has assimilated the styles of all the great players that have gone before us and is a monster player? Great tone, smooth as butter, keeping the tradition alive and helping others in the process.

    I'm sure he would be the modest first to say he can't be compared to the greatness of someone like Wes, but realistically, eyes shut and in an AB comparison, he's holding his own at least and arguably more versatile.

    That kind of knowledge was kept very close to a select few chests in the days when livelihoods depended on it.
    Sorry, but Larsen is a pro that teaches at Royal Conservatory in The Hague. I was responding to your statement regarding

    "YouTube is full of amateur bedroom players knocking out tastier licks than Wes."

  4. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by zdub
    Sorry, but Larsen is a pro that teaches at Royal Conservatory in The Hague.
    Oh ok, so the first one I quote your response is 'nah he doesn't count because he's good'?

    Does he not publish videos on the Internet for free of him playing in his bedroom, lounge, kitchen, home studio, wherever it is?

    Has he got a back catalogue on Verve records has he? Would he be known at all outside of his small circle of students he teaches if it wasn't for YouTube?

    No. But he's demonstrably a class act. And willing to demonstrate his class for free to all our mutual benefit.

  5. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by padraig
    Gosh, top five is difficult but I can offer some names that are surely in the running?

    Kessel, Jimmy Raney, Rene Thomas, Herb Ellis, Grant Green?

    Dunno, what would your top five be? Good question.
    Charlie, Barney, Joe, Wes, George.

    On deck; Martino and Hall

  6. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Jazzstdnt

    On deck; Martino and Hall
    Martino. Let's talk about Martino. Very interesting history with his health and how he relearnt to play. I have a lot of respect for his music but I think the way he explains things is utter gobbledegook. When I listen to him talk I think it must be a windup! Like he's worried that people will figure out how simple it is so he talks in riddles hoping that nobody will be able to copy him.

  7. #31

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    If I could just be as bad as Joe Pass for one day.

    I love Joe's solo playing, accompaniment of singers or single instruments and his small group work.

    As to his solo work I can always hear the song, he references the melody often, has great chord movement, bass-lines and that fiery single note bop to add excitement.

    Virtuoso is a monumental achievement.

    Thank you Joe.

  8. #32
    Quote Originally Posted by A. Kingstone
    As to his solo work I can always hear the song, he references the melody often, has great chord movement, bass-lines and that fiery single note bop to add excitement.
    I can't hear the song for the most part. If I sat down and played his solo arrangements and you didn't know it was a Joe Pass arrangement I don't think you would know what I was playing most of the time. He has chord movement but they're indecipherable, he couldn't play like that with an ensemble because it would be a shitshow. He played very differently when he wasn't solo. And that "single note bop"? His tone was anaemic balls. There's nothing "exciting" about it. In the words of the great screenplay by the great Irish writer Roddy Doyle, in the Commitments, it's "musical wanking"

    You're impressed because you're a guitarist. People who are not guitarists are not listening to solo Joe Pass albums. It's tiresome on the ears.

  9. #33

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    It's funny how one thinks one's own opinion is particular to oneself until one finds out it isn't.

    Personally, there's no question about Joe Pass' technical abilities but I agree about his CM style. Of course it's good although I think, after so many years of playing, it got a bit jaded. One got used to the same 'grips' and their sound being repeated. But occasionally he'd push the boat out with an interesting arrangement.

    Unfortunately CM has never appealed that much to me, I can't listen to it for very long. But, out of all the albums that he made, it was... yes... 'Intercontinental' that stood out. Something just gelled on that record and obviously I'm not alone in thinking that.

    Also, I think we've got used to other players now, much more modern, so Joe's style might seem a bit vanilla in comparison. Probably it ought to be looked at pretty well in the light of its time.

    Mind you, Wes Montgomery was around at pretty much the same time and he was sticking in 'out' notes with consummate ease so maybe it was just that Joe was more traditional.

    I think the complaint about not hearing the melody in a solo is wrong. You just heard the melody! If the solo sounds like a revamped melody I don't see the point. But it definitely shouldn't be so alien that it sounds like it belongs somewhere else. But I never heard that from Joe Pass.

    What he did say, though, was that if the backing was removed you should still hear the changes clearly. Which rule is not always heard today, one might add.

    As for the OP, bollocks :-)

  10. #34

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    And of course the greatness of Joe Pass has nothing to do with why a world-renowned player such as the OP gets replies to this stupid thread. You are doing poor old bad-player Joe such a favor by lending your fame and virtuosity to his miserable efforts at hacking out something on solo guitar because I guess he was such a poor player nobody wanted to be in the session with him.

    Seriously, any of us could go into the study and loose half the tracks, produce an album with legendary bad tone, and have millions of copies sell because the playing was still just so amazing people actually listen past the recording problems just to hear the sheer brilliance of it.

    I expect we'll all surpass Joe Pass' solo playing just any day now, in our bedrooms, recording on iPhones.

  11. #35

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    "Youtube is full of amateur bedroom players knocking out tastier licks than Wes"

    I'm sorry, I have to disagree as well. Even within the Wes Montgomery Jazz Competition, no one played "tastier licks than Wes". Grasso, is an amazing player--but he plays from a completely different concept--Bud Powell.

    Wes is more than the notes, it's his groove, his use of rhythm, and his expert use of space (yes, I will obsessed over that last element). Some come close, but they are also professional players NOT amateurs. Jens Larson, since he is a member of the forum, would admit that he is no Wes Montgomery. He's a great player and incredibly generous with what he is doing on Youtube, but he is no Wes. There's a liveliness in Wes's playing that few capture.

    Joe Pass had a talent for accompaniment, most definitely. There's few guitarists that understand how to accompany vocalists at this level. One of them is Mundie, Mundell Lowe. Another was Barry Galbraith. There are very few others. Joe also belongs on that list. Though I love Barney Kessel's playing, I dunno if I'd put him on that list (he'd be close, though).

    Once again, what about George Van Eps? You can't mutter the words "chord melody" without mentioning all of the preliminary work that George Van Eps did. If anything, the way that George Van Eps approached harmony was light years ahead of most guitarists in Joe's circle and beyond.

    GVE does more than drop voicings plus color tones. There's triadic conceptions, contrary motion, intricate inner voicings, and more.

    That's why I mentioned Mundie. He seemed to blend both worlds. Listen to "After Hours" with Sarah Vaughn.

  12. #36

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    Who listens to Joe Pass solo stuff for pleasure? Well, I do. In fact, I listen to that more than anything else. When I want to listen to jazz, that is usually my default.

    But so what? I think it is very musical, you don't. Neither of us get to decide objective truth, although I'll note that Joe Pass' solo albums sold well and he filled live venues with solo performances. That is as close to objective truth about whether he was musical or not.

    That said, I don't see the usefulness to anyone of post like this. All you've said is that an artist with a wide following with acknowledged technical skill doesn't float your boat. Frankly, it comes off as typical trolling:

    1) Find a large group of people who value something you don't. 2) Assume that they must be either crazy or ignorant (or possibly malignant) if they don't share your world view. 3) Go somewhere public where you expect to encounter people you don't agree with to proclaim your disdain, and 4) Challenge them to justify themselves to you with no intention to hear anything they say.

    Too bad. I'm always interested in actual discussion of Joe's technique and music.

  13. #37

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    Joe was the most complete jazz guitarist out of all of his peers. He helped establish that the guitar was a completely legit jazz instrument, with or without a band, in any context. He could hold his own with any jazz musician of his era.

    Having personal prefernces for the players you like is what jazz is all about. More people dislike Miles as a trumpet player over any other. It does't take away from his greatness.

  14. #38

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    "Youtube is full of amateur bedroom players knocking out tastier licks than Wes"- that tells us the OP probably has no feel for or idea what the groove is. It's sad, but whatever.

    At the same time, Joe Pass 'Virtuoso' albums put me off jazz and chord-melody as a genre for a loooong time. I detested those records. Later I heard his other albums with groups and accompanying Ella F, and those were great.

    Another funny thing, when I got to meet the head of the jazz department in my first college, who was also a keyboard player and a big band leader and arranger, he told me right away not to listen to Joe Pass or Al Di Meola, but if I must play jazz on guitar, listen to Wes! And surprisingly(but not really) he also approved Sco. He pretty much hated guitarists in jazz, because , in his words, they can't swing proper.

  15. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by padraig
    If a jazz pianist sat down and played like Joe Pass, would they be called "great", honestly?
    I think this question apply all jazz guitarists especially from 50s-2010s. Today maybe a bit better the statistics.

    For example if a pianist played what Pat Martino played it is pretty sure he would not be discovered among McCoy Tyner, Bill Evans or Herbie Hancock and zillion others. (but the answer is, that Pat Martino maybe played more sophisticated things if he were a piano player)

  16. #40

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    If a jazz teaching whom I was paying real money to for lessons told me Joe Pass could not swing properly, that would be my cue to drop that teacher

    Say what you want about Joe Pass, he could swing hard with the best of them. I don't know what makes someone thing he didn't.

    Honestly, I hear a lot of envy and jealousy in some of the "Joe Pass wasn't so great" talk. Not all of it, but some of it, for sure. His talent was so enormous, his knowledge of the repertoire so comprehensive, his ideas so unceasing, his technical fluency so limitless, and all delivered with a kind of off-hand nonchalance... it would be easy to want to simply slam my eyes shut and say it's not really that great.

    But it was.

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by guitarbuddy
    Yesterday I had a brunch gig with a trio I'm a regular sideman in consisting of a vocalist/ukulele player, a bassist, and me on guitar. Normally the vocalist is the bandleader and we play a variety of 1920's and beyond tunes, but through a miscommunication when the gig was booked it turned out they wanted instrumental music for the entire 4 hour brunch, so I became the bandleader and called tunes from memory for the day, the other two reading changes from iReal charts.

    Now I know there are some very capable guitarists who hang out here who also do this kind of thing with ease - some better than me by far - but the vast majority of hobby jazz guitarists would have about as much success pulling this off as I would stepping into a cage and fighting a professional MMA fighter (I practiced martial arts as a hobby for many years).

    And so it is with OP, who admitted less than a year ago that he has trouble following Jamey Aebersold play-alongs, but is comfortable dissing the jazz players who are and were at the top of their fields - Montgomery and Pass to name two obvious examples. These were men who played thousands of jazz gigs under all kinds of circumstances and captured the acclaim of fans and other musicians worldwide, but to OP they were nothing special, especially since amateurs on youtube can play better than they, apparently. TBH it's this kind of BS, along with 20-something amateurs and music students telling me I'm full of crap, that has made hanging out in these kinds of environs less and less interesting anymore.

    So here's my advice to you, OP. Go play thousands of jazz gigs while holding down a full time job (as Wes did) or after a stint in prison (as Joe did), get a recording contract, sell hundreds of thousands of records, and then get back to us. We'll be waiting.
    Absolutely.

    Seems like the better people can play, the more respectful those same people are of other fine players, even when the aesthetic vision is different. Real musicians respect Joe Pass, even if they aren't into what he did. As for "if a pianist played it..." that's just a BS argument. If a pianist played the identical melodies Miles Davis played, it would be awful because the piano is different from the trumpet. A pianist who only played the single-lines of Charlie Parker would not be great because the sax is not the piano. The pianist has 88 keys, 10 fingers, 10-15 inches of reach on the keyboard, hundreds of pounds of instrumental resonance to back him up... he damn well better do more with that.

    Guitar's genius and vexation is its limitations. But Goethe reminds us "In der Beschränkung macht sich erst der Meister." Joe Pass mastered the limitations and took us new places within them. Hell, he didn't even down-tune the 6th string. Kept the goal posts in place, and just ran plays nobody thought he could run.

    A guitarist who can keep up a convincing harmonic framework, punctuated rhythmically by the impression of a walking bass, playing standards and then improvising harmonically and melodically over them at the same time, not just playing organ-like stretch chords (GVE) but also putting in long bop lines and utterly spontaneous key-changes, rhythmic change-ups, and the periodic joke... no wonder "Virtuoso" seemed to be a totally okay thing to call Joe Pass.

  18. #42

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    Have always been a huge 'Joe' fan - I have probably more of his CDs (remember them?) than any other player because I appreciate solo guitar above all else. Loved the stuff he did with Ella but .........some of his solo stuff can get a little busy at times. Still a monster, though.

  19. #43
    Jkniff26 Guest
    From what I’ve seen Joe was a sweet guy, but he clearly knew he was a genius. He also seemed to me to be highly critical of what he heard . Not in a mean way , just in a way where he knew what was jive. Do you think you could play with Joe , Padraig or whatever your name is. ?Could you run Rhythm Changes or Parker Blues or ATTYA through a few different keys while he blows side by side without him wanting to slap the shit out of you.? A lot of the people on this forum could. He did that with lots of people in music stores and stuff, and he seemed to love it. He did hundreds of tunes in all keys , all ways , in perfect time standing on his head. Can you even do the simplest stuff that he let some lucky folks do when they hung out with him?

  20. #44
    I clearly said he was technically great and knew his onions inside out. I also said I rate his work with ensembles or when he was an accompanist. He's brilliant with Ella Fitzgerald.

    All I said was his chord melody solo stuff wasn't that great to listen to. That jazz fans outside of the world of guitar probably wouldn't put on a solo Joe Pass album for pleasure.

    And I stand by that. People have pointed to my own shortcomings as a musician, as if in some way we're not allowed an opinion unless we can play as well as these guys? But that's missing the point, this is music. Music is supposed to be enjoyable, entertaining. And I have two functioning ears the same as the next person.

    I said it was an unpopular opinion, especially so on a forum full of jazz guitarists. Question though, who would you rather listen to play solo, Joe Pass or Bill Evans?

    I know my opinion is not terribly unpopular outside of guitar circles because this whole thing came from a discussion I was having with work colleagues last week, who are music teachers, brass and piano players who play jazz and teach jazz and arrange for bands and conduct bands. And their opinion was that jazz guitarists are usually the weakest link, to the point where they won't entertain them. Can't read music, can't play, can't swing, play from 'patterns', have no sense of balance when playing with others, limited repertoire, etc.

  21. #45

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    I like the post because I think it's good to be able to have respectful discussions about the individual preferences for styles of different players. Jazz legends shouldn't be made untouchable taboos. No player is perfect. Moreover people come to this music with different experiences and mindsets. But sometimes there is a tendency to take any criticism of the "jazz heroes" personally and turn hostile towards the poster.
    It's possible to articulate what you like and don't like about a certain players style. That's called art appreciation. It might help someone else to hear the artist differently, or not.
    For example if someone says "YouTube is full of amateur bedroom players knocking out tastier licks than Wes.", I would say I don't hear that because Wes to me is not a lick player. That's just not how I hear him. To me Wes is more like a composer. I like how he develops a solo. How it all flows and comes together. I like his use of lots of space. I like his rhythmic feel. His music makes me tap my foot, bop my head.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 05-13-2019 at 02:38 PM.

  22. #46

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    Quote Originally Posted by lawson-stone
    If a jazz teaching whom I was paying real money to for lessons told me Joe Pass could not swing properly, that would be my cue to drop that teacher

    Say what you want about Joe Pass, he could swing hard with the best of them. I don't know what makes someone thing he didn't.

    Honestly, I hear a lot of envy and jealousy in some of the "Joe Pass wasn't so great" talk. Not all of it, but some of it, for sure. His talent was so enormous, his knowledge of the repertoire so comprehensive, his ideas so unceasing, his technical fluency so limitless, and all delivered with a kind of off-hand nonchalance... it would be easy to want to simply slam my eyes shut and say it's not really that great.

    But it was.
    Luckily, that was a free college! At that time all education was free.

    I was very young and didnt know much about jazz, and frankly wasn't planning to be a serious jazz guitarist, all I wanted to play rock. But I still understood the teacher's general point, it's all about how you fit in a band. Driving swing is more important than virtuosity.

    Anyway, I do dig JP a lot now. He's a perfect guitarist to transcribe in jazz, his lines are so clear and really make sense. His group recordings and as a accompanist are brilliant!

    But still to this day I can't listen to his chord-melody solo stuff. He was a virtuoso, but his concept of how it's done don't appeal to me, it's just a taste preference.

  23. #47
    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    I like the OP because I think it's good to be able to have respectful discussions about the individual preferences for styles of different players. Jazz legends shouldn't be made untouchable taboos.
    I like the OP too : P

    But no, on a serious note I agree with you. My post was intentially controversial, my intention being to start a discussion along the lines of do we think our guitar heroes really cut it with the wider jazz audience? Or is it a case of hero worship in an echo chamber?

    I titled it "unpopular opinion" for a reason. There are some lovely people who have commented and the discussion is good. It's sad that some people have chosen to call me things like "troll" but not unexpected. Is anyone that disagrees with us a troll now? Is that the new language of debate, if you offer an opinion that goes against the concensus you clearly have no motive other than to antagonise?

  24. #48
    Quote Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
    Anyway, I do dig JP a lot now. He's a perfect guitarist to transcribe in jazz, his lines are so clear and really make sense. His group recordings and as a accompanist are brilliant!
    One of the best things about this thread has been that it's made me listen to Joe's ensemble recordings more carefully than I have before. Previously I had heard his solo stuff, thought it was nothing more than meh, and other than that only heard him in "passing", when I was listening to recordings that he happened to play on.

    He was a very good band member. The stuff he did with Ella Fitzgerald was every bit as enjoyable as any pianist that could have backed her. Lots to learn from there.

  25. #49

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    The first Joe Pass stuff I heard was from ‘Catch Me’, which knocked me out and still does. I only heard the solo stuff later and it took me a while to get into it, as others have said Joe was a very ‘busy’ player sometimes. Here’s a track from Catch Me, I just wanted to be able to play solos like this!


  26. #50

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    I need to be in a certain mood to enjoy the more "busy" recordings of Joe Pass or Tal Farlow. But I never need to be in a certain mood to enjoy Charlie Parker. If I'm not in the mood, he gets me in the mood everytime. Even his busy playing.