-
I consider myself an aficionado of all things Joe Pass but somehow missed this article from 1992.
Success Isn't Everything to Jazz Guitar Legend Joe Pass - latimes
-
12-10-2015 04:05 PM
-
Good article. Thanks for posting! In my book Joe is still The Man.
-
good, but bittersweet..a year and half later and he was gone..
cheers
-
Me too. (Well, I'm not an afficianado but I had missed this too.) Thanks.
Originally Posted by lawson-stone
-
I also published a piece about Joe Pass shortly after his death. I am trying to find if it's available online. If so, I'll link.
-
Are you the Lawson Stone who wrote a contribution to Just Jazz Guitar mag.Dedicated to Joe Pass.I think it was their 1st Issue?If you are Thanks it was really moving!I pull the mag.out once in a while and read it.Love the cover photo.And the entire mag.My how time passes.If so i cant believe that i now can enjoy comments from one of the contributors to a much treasured Journal.
-
Yes I wrote that article along with a piece that went in Acoustic Guitar magazine--the issue that year with Willie Nelson on the cover. So glad you liked the article. Originally Posted by EarlBrother
-
I bought a copy of Dec.2013 issue Acoustic G. for the article and music of Stephane Wrembles Bistro Fada.When i get a moment i will tell you how Joe Pass, Louie Mialy,JJG and your article as well as others became a watershed in my life and continues to inspire me.
-
ha ha great guy Joe .... Originally Posted by lawson-stone
so down to earth , gives one hope
-
good man Originally Posted by lawson-stone
-
If I can get my son to show me how to post I can put it here.I am technopathetico.the article on Joe pass that is.if that'sallowable
-
Thank you for posting ! Joe was diagnosed with liver cancer in Feb. 1992 so he was battling the disease when this article was published. He is in my top 5 hero list. I was blessed to see him many times. Also a super nice man and a had a great sense of humor.
-
Great article--Joe seems to have been a real stand-up guy, in addition to being a monster guitarist.
I love that picture of him with Tommy Tedesco and Frank Zappa--what a bunch of talent at the table! (And cigarettes and fine Italian food...)
-
Wow, really, Joe Pass & Frank Zappa together? Any story behind that photo?
-
I think Jimmy Bruno and John Pisano are in that photo as well. I know nothing about the photo. I did read that Tedesco played on Zappa's Lumpy Gravy--many of the session musicians thought this session was a joke and some refused to play because they said the music was "unplayable". Zappa apparently played their parts himself, and they grudgingly agreed to play the work as written.
Also there's this note about Tedesco and Joe and Frank:
http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscella...-tedesco/12770Last edited by Doctor Jeff; 12-19-2015 at 09:58 AM.
-
Here you go. I will remove it if it is not allowable, just let me know (the moderator can do it without asking me anyway). Since the site is not paid, I presume it is OK.
Originally Posted by EarlBrother
Success Isn't Everything to Jazz Guitar Legend Joe Pass
December 18, 1992DIRK SUTRO | SPECIAL TO THE TIMES
SAN DIEGO — Joe Pass is a fun guy to talk to because the legendary jazz guitarist doesn't take himself too seriously. So once the obligatory questions about his latest guitar (a Gibson), new album (Christmas songs), recent touring experiences (in Europe), and theories on practicing (he doesn't) have run their course, conversation turns to what he does in his spare time.
"I eat, I read--the Bible, current novels, Gay Talese's new book about how he grew up in New Jersey in an Italian family, sometimes Elmore Leonard or Larry McMurtry," said Pass, who opened a three-night solo run at the Horton Grand Hotel downtown Thursday.
"I never used to read mysteries until someone gave me Elmore Leonard. I said, 'This is kind of fun,' because I never read Mickey Spillane. For a long time, I didn't even read fiction. I tried to read all the philosophers, but I got stuck a third of the way through on the second page of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Then I went through a period of reading all those books, 'The True Story of . . . Elvis, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra,' all that baloney, then I got tired of that."
Pass, who lives in Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley with his wife, is revered among musicians, critics and fans for subtle elaborations of chord changes, clearly articulated single-note strings of improvised melody and an intuitive emotional feel for the nuances of a song.
He thrives on his music, but it's not the all-consuming passion it is with some players.
He hates recording, but accepts it as a necessary evil of having a career.
"It helps you get some exposure, helps you get some work, but I'm not trying to make history, not trying to be the best guitar player in the world," said Pass, who estimates he has played on 50 to 70 recordings including roughly 20 of his own.
"I like live recordings, where you're not in the studio so there's no red light, but even that I don't like too much, because you're always aware you're recording, and it's always a tense time, at least for me."
And Pass is no workaholic. He doesn't bring his work home with him.
"I didn't build a studio in my garage," he said. "I have minimal equipment, I don't have state-of-the-art speakers, that stuff, I never did get into it.
"I practice very little; it's not that I don't have to, just that I'm lazy, basically, and I do a lot of playing when I'm playing solo.
"I know a lot of fellows that practice. If you get into that, it's great, it's like jogging or drinking juice. I practiced when I was a kid, four, five, six hours a day, then drifted away when I started playing (professionally). I always intend to practice, and I start for day or two, then I stop and read the newspaper or Time magazine, lay on the couch."
Yet amazing sounds flow from this self-described couch potato, whose 1974 release, "Virtuoso," a collection of solo guitar pieces, marked his arrival as a complete jazz guitarist.
Pass, who says he only likes a small percentage of the music he has recorded, rates "Virtuoso" as one of his best albums, along with the 1989 "Summer Nights." He believes these recordings best capture the spontaneity of live playing, though both were studio sessions.
On "Virtuoso," Pass wrung fresh emotional and musical nuances out of such time-tested songs as "Stella By Starlight" and "Cherokee."
Using a combination of flat- and finger-picking, Pass broke down the songs and rebuilt them, with signature melodies subtly embedded in one-man symphonic treatments that included complex improvised chordal transitions, thumb-plucked bass lines, and speedy flat-picked strings of single notes he embroidered around the melodies.
Since then, Pass has pushed steadily toward what he believes is even a more pure style, if that is possible from a man already regarded by many as the heavyweight champ of straight-ahead jazz guitar.
Pass, 63, has almost entirely given up picks. Using only his fingers, he gets a fuller, rounder sound.
"Playing with your fingers is much better for solo guitar," he explained. "You can get counterpoint, add bass lines. I decided to sacrifice playing fast with a pick to play music with my fingers."
Pass was born in New Brunswick, N.J., and raised in Johnstown, Pa., where he started lessons at age 9 on a $17 guitar. By the late 1940s, he was working jazz clubs in New York City, but his career sputtered when he got involved with drugs. He moved through several cities during the 1950s and '60s, including Chicago, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Casper, Wyo., where, Pass reports, there was actually a thriving music scene supported by gambling casinos.
In 1961, Pass entered Synanon Foundation in Santa Monica and got himself straightened out, and the 1962 "Sounds of Synanon" was his first release. Pass says Belgian guitarist Django Reinhardt was an early influence, but horn players, including Dizzy Gillespie, Coleman Hawkins and Charlie Parker, were equally important to the development of Pass' singing, fluid approach.
The guitarist, who originally came to Los Angeles in 1960 because of opportunities for studio work, has also mostly given up working on recording projects other than his own.
In his peak studio years between about 1966 and 1969, he backed singers including Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Joe Williams and appeared with house bands on television programs hosted by Pearl Bailey, Leslie Uggams and Donald O'Connor, among others.
Pass concentrates now on his own music. Due next year are a solo release and a group effort with his regular band: guitarist John Pisano, bassist Jim Hughart and drummer Colin Bailey.
The new collection of Christmas songs, "Six String Santa" (on the Laserlight label) was not Pass' idea. The label asked him to do it, and while he didn't take the project too seriously, he did get in the spirit of the season.
"They suggested some songs, I chose some, 'Winter Wonderland,' 'Let It Snow.' I made a medley out of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,' 'Angels We Have Heard on High' and 'Joy to the World.' "
Pass is a refreshing musician who doesn't wear his musical prowess like a chrome badge to be regularly polished with a flourish of knuckles.
"I've been told I should do this or that, get a publicist, make a hit record, get my name on the charts or in the papers, but I never did any of that, I'm not business conscious or ambitious in that way."
But Pass is thankful for natural talents.
"I think it's a gift from God that I play the guitar. I don't know how I got started, no one played anything in my family, there were no musicians. I've just been playing over 50 years off and on, and I never thought about making a career of it."
* Pass plays tonight and Saturday at the Horton Grand Hotel, starting at 8:30. There's a $10 cover charge.
-
Love it! Who is Richard's talking to (he says "we all laughed, including your dad")? Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
-
Yes that's John Pisano on the other side of Zappa from Joe Pass. I don't know about Jimmy Bruno being in the shot. That picture was pretty old, Bruno would have been pretty young I think, but I really don't know. It'd be so cool if Jimmy were actually in the picture. Originally Posted by Doctor Jeff
Maybe he knows? Could somebody contact him?
-
"Lumpy Gravy" is one of my all-time favorite albums.
-
He is talking to Tommy Tedescos son.I think.
-
I think that interview was from the movie The Wrecking Crew, which was produced by Tedesco's son.
Reply With Quote
Repairing The Covering On a Vintage Guitar Case
Today, 05:21 PM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos