Jazz Articles about The NDR Big Band

Joe Pass: In Hamburg

by Jack Bowers
March 4, 1998

Blues, ballads, bossas, burners--it made no difference to the late Joe Pass, an uncompromising perfectionist who took them all in stride and was, if anything, almost too flawless to arouse in the listener an earnest emotional response. Listening to Pass, one quickly gains the impression that there wasn't anything he couldn't do--an impression that is borne out by his uncanny ability to weave deceptively candid single-note lines into a remarkably poetic tapestry while swinging prodigiously in any context.