Jazz Articles about Joe Pass

Joe Pass: Meditation

by Ken Dryden
February 16, 2023

Although a few jazz guitarists still perform solo concerts in the early days of the 21st century, none of them has produced anything approaching the series of live recordings by Joe Pass during his two decades as a Pablo artist. Incredibly, Pass maintained that playing unaccompanied on stage wasn't even his idea. During my November 1993 interview with him, Pass recounted this verbal exchange: “I don't know why I did it. I was asked to do it. I was put ...

To Dream the Impossible Dream: the quest for a music education

by Peter Rubie
May 22, 2019

I've been thinking a lot about how jazz is taught recently. I realize now, my search for a real musical education was not a simple thing, but a series of life changing moments. My son, on the other hand, is planning to study music in college after he finishes high school. Though it would fill his grandparents with dread were they still around to see it, to Ben and his peers it is a natural choice, focused on finding the ...

Roy Clark and Joe Pass: Play Hank Williams

by Samuel Chell
January 17, 2007

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you--the title means what it says. Birdland comes to Hee Haw on this all-instrumental session, which features the country music icon mixing it up with the once-dominating master of jazz guitar (Oscar Peterson et Joe Pass à la Salle Pleyel, Pablo, 1975). From the perspective of a city boy, this combination might seem as likely as Ornette Coleman and Kenny G getting together to record the music of John Tesh. But trust many guitarists to ...

Norman Granz' Jazz In Montreux Presents: Joe Pass '75

by John Kelman
August 11, 2006

Joe Pass Norman Granz' Jazz In Montreux Presents: Joe Pass '75 Eagle Eye Media 2006 (1975)

It's not often you get a second chance in life, but the late guitarist Joe Pass was one of the fortunate few. After starting out playing in big bands like Charlie Barnet's in the 1940s, Pass' drug addiction and resulting jail sentence kept him off the scene for a decade until 1962, when he returned with a series ...

Joe Pass Live at the Four Queens Hotel, Las Vegas, 1988

by Ken Dryden
May 25, 2006

By the time of his death from cancer in 1994, Joe Pass was widely recognized as one of the top jazz guitarists of all time, especially for his virtuoso solo performances. Prior to his passing, I had an opportunity to do a phone interview with Pass and was rather surprised that the guitarist found it difficult to listen to his recordings, as he always felt that he could have played better. The 1988 broadcast of his appearance at ...

Does Anybody Here Remember Joe (Pass)?

by Craig M. Cortello
April 21, 2006

Does anybody here remember Joe? That's the question I asked myself in May of 1994 when I learned that my hero had died. As the television show Entertainment Tonight rolled the closing credits one evening, they noted that the legendary jazz guitarist Joe Pass had passed away, while a brief clip from one of his live performances closed the show. I doubt that Mary Hart knew the magnitude of the words she read, but few of the ET viewers probably ...

Joe Pass: Virtuoso

by C. Michael Bailey
February 9, 2005

Joe Pass was born Joseph Anthony Passalaqua, January 13, 1929 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Pass was born into a blue-collar non-musical family and began to play the guitar when he was 9. The guitarist's father, a steel mill worker, realized early that his son was musically talented and encouraged him to listen to all music and pick out songs by ear. Pass's forward-thinking father also encouraged his son to play pieces not originally written for the guitar and to ...