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I had a chat with Joe Pass once in the downstairs bar at Ronnie Scott's, sometime in the 1980s. We were the only 2 people in there! He even bought me a drink.
He had just finished his first set and was very tired, he said he didn't feel like playing the next set later on.
But he was really friendly to me and very easy to talk to.
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03-21-2016 06:03 PM
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The bass player form The Fabulous Thunderbirds used to post an On-the-Road diary/blog while the band was touring. There was one guy referred to, part of their touring staff, whose ONLY job was to keep the "Guitar Geeks" from getting to Jimmie Vaughn. When I read that it struck me how tedious it must be for accomplished musicians to have to discuss instrument-related issues ad nauseum...and if they don't feel like conversing then they're a-holes.
That being said, I got to converse for about 20 minutes between sets at a Beach House/Performance Space south of San Francisco with Herb Ellis...Total Sweetheart.Last edited by Flat5; 03-22-2016 at 03:22 AM.
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Never met him, never will, but here's how I like to imagine him
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how cool is this? haha
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I disapprove of character assassination of the deceased. I can say this. I had been to countless JP shows and some in very small intimate settings. Joe was very aware of the audience and didn't like people talking when he was playing. On several occasions I was just a few feet away during a performance. I would never say a word. I just glared at his left hand. He was very aware of this and would keep staring at me with that famous half grin. I was able to talk to him between sets and he was always very kind and funny. I actually think he remembered me the last time I talked to him.
He asked me what kind of a guitar I was playing and I told him a 335. He blew out a puff of smoke, rolled his eyes, and told me to go get a real guitar but it was in his dry humor kind of way. I found him to be a very kind and super funny guy and of course a absolute guitar master. Herb Ellis was very nice too. Talk about the Dynamic Duo. Ray Brown was another super nice guy.
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I met him once at a gig seminar. He was very gentle and kind.
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03-22-2016, 05:42 PM #32destinytot Guest
I know that Sean Levitt was grateful to Joe Pass for his encouragement.
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When I was at GIT 1982-1983, Joe would spend one to two weeks a month at the school, depending on his performance schedule. I was around him quite a bit. I never saw him react rudely to anyone who asked a question, no matter how basic.
He had an "aw shucks, I'm just Pennsylvania coal miner's son" schtick that he would roll out from time to time but he was actually very modest about his own accomplishments. He preferred playing standards over jazz tunes and would good naturally rag the students for "always wanting to hear the fast crap"when we requested tunes like Cherokee.
He smiled a lot and was generally good-natured.
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I think Joe combined two qualities that could easily be mis-understood as rudeness. First, seriously, he did not gladly suffer fools. A genuine idiot who ran his mouth a lot might not find Joe Pass very congenial company. But second, Joe seemed to be someone who loved to make you think he was annoyed when he wasn't. He would push a little to see if you had any push-back in you. If you took it in stride, gave a little good-natured push-back, he was fine. Some people are quite unable to deal with that kind of personality. The batteries in their Acme Irony Detector are long dead.
So Joe would say sometimes extreme things. "I don't use a pick anymore" or "I don't play fast anymore" or the like. Yet it's evident he played fast, as well as slow, and used a pick, as well as finger style, for his whole career. He was generally expressing there his trend or inclination, but when the music started, Joe did whatever he wanted and needed to do to make the music happen. Pick or fingers, fast or slow, he did it all right up to the end.
I have some other stories but I don't feel it would be right to tell them. At his funeral, most folks there had no idea who I was, and when I introduced myself, they would tell me some story about Joe. When they found out I was a clergyman, they would often tell other stuff. I hold those conversations as a pastoral trust, but they also gave me a look at the man that I cherish.
We have no idea how much we lost when Joe Pass died. Curt Cobain, who died about 3 weeks before Joe, and Jackie O. who died just a few days before Joe, were much more widely spoken of, but I think the loss to our world with Joe's death was considerably greater in either case.
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This pic was taken in Cedric West's house ( he is on the left.) I had the very good fortune to be tutored by him,
Originally Posted by neatomic
(he and Ike were tutors to Martin Taylor in his early years )
and Ike Isaacs once or twice I also met JP there too who was very affable and gave freely of his time to show
nerds like me how it's really done. I am honoured to have known them all.
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I know for a fact that Joe definitely had a very very sweet side. A friend of mine was an experienced show band player before he came out to LA. He went to GIT a few years before me, but I didn't meet him till many years after the fact when we ended up working together in our day gigs in tech. I knew him for a year before he saw a GIT sticker on a guitar case at my apartment. (You went to GIT?!!?!)
He told me that one of his connections (teacher? bandleader?) knew Joe well and asked him to look after my friend when he arrived in town. Joe actually drove my friend all over town looking at rooms and apartments, every time saying "Nah, this place is a dump. You don't wanna live here." (My bud then did an hysterical impression of Joe saying this while chomping on a cigar. You can imagine.)
In the end I think Joe hooked him up with some friends who had a great little guest cottage.
All this for a 20 year old kid he never met.
(True story. Wish it were mine.)
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I remember reading that years ago as well. I think it might have been a seminar like situation, and the guy got up to play with Joe and suggested they start blowing on a vamp in E or something Originally Posted by Hep To The Jive
I remember in Guitar Player years ago somebody shared a memory of Joe Pass in the 70's, when a stoned hippy or something approached him and said ' yeah dude, you're great, do you wanna jam in E, lets just jam man!' Joe Pass coldly said ' I play tunes' and walked away.
If thats the case, who can blame him, really
One other thing that comes to mind, is reading Larry Carlton say he took a few lessons from Joe Pass when he (Carlton) was quite young. Carlton said Joe's usual assessment MO was to get a student he had never heard before to play a Blues in C, and Joe would then grade the player as A grade B grade or C grade, and proceed with the lessons accordingly. He obviously didn't have a grading for 'vamp in E' 
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From another JP thread I posted this:
From 1986 to 1990 I was a staff mixer at GroupIV Recording studios on Wilcox in Hollywood. Joe did a lot of recording in that room, Studio A. The owner was Angel Ballister, and he and Joe were pals. Studio A was state of the art at the time-Trident desk and Studer 24 track 2" machine. All mastering machines were also Studer. The mic locker was totally mind blowing with Neumann, Telefunken and RCA ribbon mics-just about anything a sound engineer could want. So as far as the speculation that Joe's tone may have been caused by inferior equipment-well I would have to respectfully disagree. Studio A was a very large room, large enough to hold about sixty players as the bread and butter sessions were with Mike Post, scoring "LA Law", and other popular shows at that time. Alan Silvestri scored "The Abyss" in that room, and about half of the LA Phil was on that session.
We had a Post-Production room, and I was working on the Tracey Ullman show for Fox when Joe and Ella were working on a duet recording. I was a huge fan of Joe's then (and now) and wandered over to Studio A during a break to see what was up. They were on a break as well, and Angel and Joe were smoking cigars in the studio. I started a conversation with Joe and told him how much I admired his playing and he asked if I played. I replied yes and he said let me hear a song. His 175 was hooked up to a Polytone and he and Angel pointed at the rig. I don't remember much about the 175 to tell the truth. I made a stab at Autumn Leaves and he graciously said"...sounds good, keep after it" and went back to his cigar with Angel. Never forget that moment, and 25 years later I'm still "after it".
Yes, Joe was one in a trillion.
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Priceless story. Utterly Priceless!
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Artists are judged by their art, not by their politeness.
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Tabo Oishi's web site describes Joe in a warm and affectionate light and it appears that Joe could be very warm and affectionate towards his fans.
Joe Pass Memorial Hall
A great story that I hope Tabo will be OK with me copying:
"When I visited Joe's house in L.A., 1979, I played "How High the Moon" which I copied from "Virtuoso" in front of Joe. In the middle of the tune, I lost my way, struggling on it, played the same phrase several times, . . . Joe was gazing me and finally brought me to land asking, "Tabo, how long did it take to copy ?" I stoped the playing and said, "It took me three months." Then Joe said, "Jesus!! . . . It took me three years!!"
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All I can say is that over the years I have been lucky enough to chat with a few jazz musicians, e.g. Joe Pass, Howard Alden, Jim Mullen, Dick Morrissey, Kirk Lightsey, Eddie Henderson, Peter Bernstein, Red Holloway, and they were all approachable and friendly. Joe and Dick both bought me a drink. When I told Dick Morrissey I played guitar, we had a great chat about guitarists (not sax players!) - he knew as much about the great jazz guitarists as I did! (perhaps from playing with Jim Mullen). Howard even offered me a go on his 7-string guitar when I told him I played. (But I barely played it, I was so scared of dropping it!). Kirk told me some great stories about life on the road with Dexter Gordon.
I remember Red Holloway played with Sonny Stitt, and in the interval Sonny was signing their latest duo LP and everyone queued up for Sonny's autograph, while no-one asked Red, who was standing by himself a little way off. So I went over to Red and said 'Mr Holloway, I wonder if you would be kind enough to sign my record?' Well his face lit up, and he said 'How can I refuse, when you ask me so nicely?' and we had a nice talk. It occurred to me afterwards that he probably grew up in a world where it was rare for a young white guy to speak to him so politely and respectfully.
No doubt there will be exceptions, but it always seemed to me that if you approach these guys with respect, and they can tell that you really care about the music, they love to talk about it.
I'd have thought you were more likely to get a brush-off in the pop, rock or classical world.
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When I was a youngin', I went to a JP seminar at Wayne State University. A few hours with about 30 folks. During a break I asked him a stupid question about some chord progression he did on Meditation (on Intercontinental, one of my fav albums). He tried out a few chord progressions and then apologized for not remembering exactly what he did.
So in this case he did suffer fools gladly.
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He wasn't suffering a "fool" but a learner who had taken time to attend the seminar, who had listened to an album of his, studied a track, and had an intelligent, even if beginner-level question. You were by no means a fool. I used the "did not gladly suffer fools" phrase because it's kind of an idiom for "doesn't waste time on a-holes." Joe always seemed to be willing to help a beginner with a real question--like me and clearly, happily, like you. Originally Posted by zdub
I didn't mean to imply he was intolerant of beginners, he certainly wasn't (though he did advise me at one point that I might want to "find another hobby!")
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Are you guys for real. Joe was so unimportant to corporate OOZA in his day he cut a (great) deal with those Asian peeps. Like many artists, Joe was cool when he was dead.
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I stumbled on a YouTube of a guy who told his story.Of a time early in his career when he walked into a music store in NY.This older guy called him over and shared a point about playing and then he left.The store employee called him over all anxious about what the guy told him.He showed me a chord progression and how to practise it up an down the neck.The store employee asked do yu know who that was?That was Joe pass!
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This is a strange question. Back when Joe Pass died, I had the chance to attend his funeral since he and I had corresponded briefly prior to his death. I put a short piece in the Just Jazz Guitar special issue dedicated to Joe Pass. In response to that, I was sent (I'll leave out by whom) a VCR that had what appears to be Joe's last performance. It's clearly a small private room, small audience, John Pisano playing guitar, with a pianist and bassist. He plays "Body and Soul" and at some point seems just to give out from exhaustion.
It's a poignant, sad moment, and obviously, I'll never be posting this anywhere or sharing it. But I am curious to know if anyone else has this same video? I more or less assumed a good many people had it, but I've never heard of anyone else (except the person who sent it to me) with it.
Partly, I'm wondering about the need to make sure this video is preserved safely--if it turns out to be a very rare one.
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I would have it transferred to a digital format to help preserve it. I'm sure that video was for a select few and there are copies around, but out of respect for Joe people just keep it to themselves. The person you would probably want to ask is Frank Potenza great guitarist and very close friend of Joe's.
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Actually if the video is to be shared, it'll have to be someone who was closer to Joe than I was. I honestly don't think I have the right to put it out there. The video is dated May 7, 1994, and of course Joe died May 23, 1994. Originally Posted by docbop
I was just curious how many others actually had this, or had seen it. If there were dozens and dozens of people, then I was going to be a little calmer about preservation. But if there are just a few, then I have a greater responsibility than I'd thought.
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Originally Posted by lawson-stone
No, I didn't mean to share it, I was just talking about preserving it and to get more info on the tape Frank would be a good person to ask. No, something's aren't meant to be shared publicly.
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