Joe Pass was an Italian-American
jazzJazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
guitaristA guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
of
SicilianSicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century. His extensive use of walking basslines, melodic
counterpointIn music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
during improvisation, use of a chord-melody style of play and outstanding knowledge of chord inversions and progressions opened up new possibilities for jazz guitar and had a profound influence on future guitarists.
Early life
Born in
New BrunswickNew Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...
,
New JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Joe Pass, the son of Mariano Passalaqua, a
SicilianSicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
-born steel mill worker, was raised in
Johnstown, PennsylvaniaJohnstown is a city in Cambria County, Pennsylvania, United States, west-southwest of Altoona, Pennsylvania and east of Pittsburgh. The population was 20,978 at the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cambria County...
. Born into a non-musical family, Pass started to play the guitar after being inspired by actor
Gene Autry'sOrvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
portrayal of a guitar-playing cowboy. He received his first guitar, a
Harmonythumb|right|250px|A collection of Harmony guitars:SS Stewart gold acoustic, H73 [[Roy Smeck]], H37 Hollywood, Silvertone 1446, H44 StratotoneThe Harmony Company was an American company that, in its heyday, was the largest musical instrument manufacturer in the USA...
model bought for $17, on his 9th birthday. Pass' father recognized early that his son had "a little something happening" and pushed him constantly to pick up tunes by ear, play pieces not written specifically for the instrument, practice scales and not to "leave any spaces" - that is, to fill in the sonic space between the notes of the melody.
As early as 14, Pass started getting gigs and was playing with bands fronted by
Tony PastorTony Pastor was an Italian American novelty singer and tenor saxophonist, who played tenor sax with John Cavallaro , Irving Aaronson , Austin Wylie , Smith Ballew , Joe Venuti, Paul Fredricks, Vincent Lopez, and Artie Shaw's first and second orchestras...
and
Charlie BarnetCharles Daly Barnet was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and bandleader.His major recordings were "Skyliner", "Cherokee", "The Wrong Idea", "Scotch and Soda", "In a Mizz", and "Southland Shuffle".-Early life:...
, honing his guitar skills and learning the music business. He began traveling with small jazz groups and eventually moved from Pennsylvania to
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In a few years, he fell victim to
drugRecreational drug use is the use of a drug, usually psychoactive, with the intention of creating or enhancing recreational experience. Such use is controversial, however, often being considered to be also drug abuse, and it is often illegal...
abuse, and spent much of the 1950s in relative obscurity. Pass managed to emerge from it through a two-and-a-half-year stay at
SynanonThe Synanon organization, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich, Sr., in 1958, in Santa Monica, California, United States...
, drug rehabilitation program. During that time he played guitar non stop and further honed his skills. In 1962 he recorded
The Sounds of Synanon.
Discovery and subsequent career
Pass recorded a series of albums during the 1960s for the
Pacific JazzPacific Jazz Records was a Los Angeles-based record label best known for releasing cool jazz or West coast jazz. It was founded by Richard Bock and drummer Roy Harte in 1952....
label, including the early classics
Catch Me,
12-String Guitar,
For Django, and
Simplicity. In 1963, Pass received
Downbeat magazine's "New Star Award". Pass was also featured on Pacific Jazz recordings by
Gerald WilsonGerald Stanley Wilson is an American jazz trumpeter, big band bandleader, composer/arranger, 8 time Grammy nominee, and educator. He has been based in Los Angeles since the early 1940s....
,
Bud ShankClifford Everett "Bud" Shank, Jr. was an American alto saxophonist and flautist. He rose to prominence in the early 1950s playing lead alto and flute in Stan Kenton's Innovations in Modern Music Orchestra and throughout the decade worked in various small jazz combos. He spent the 1960s as a first...
, and
Les McCannLes McCann is an American soul jazz piano player and vocalist whose biggest successes came as a crossover artist into R&B and soul.-Biography:...
. Pass toured with
George ShearingSir George Shearing, OBE was an Anglo-American jazz pianist who for many years led a popular jazz group that recorded for MGM Records and Capitol Records. The composer of over 300 titles, he had multiple albums on the Billboard charts during the 1950s, 1960s, 1980s and 1990s...
in 1965. Mostly, however, during the 1960s he did TV and recording session work in
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
.
He was a sideman with Louis Bellson,
Frank SinatraFrancis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
,
Sarah VaughanSarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...
,
Joe WilliamsJoe Williams was a well-known jazz vocalist, a baritone singing a mixture of blues, ballads, popular songs, and jazz standards.-Early life:...
,
Della ReeseDelloreese Patricia Early, known professionally as Della Reese , is an American actress, singer, game show panelist of the 1970s, one-time talk-show hostess and ordained minister. She started her career in the 1950s as a gospel, pop and jazz singer, scoring a hit with her 1959 single "Don't You...
,
Johnny MathisJohn Royce "Johnny" Mathis is an American singer of popular music. Starting his career with singles of standards, he became highly popular as an album artist, with several dozen of his albums achieving gold or platinum status, and 73 making the Billboard charts...
, and worked on TV shows including
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny CarsonThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson is a talk show hosted by Johnny Carson under the Tonight Show franchise from 1962 to 1992. It originally aired during late-night....
,
The Merv Griffin ShowThe Merv Griffin Show is an American television talk show, starring Merv Griffin. The series ran from October 1, 1962 to March 29, 1963 on NBC, September 20, 1965 to September 26, 1969 in first-run syndication, from August 18, 1969 to February 11, 1972 at 11:30 PM ET weeknights on CBS and again in...
,
The Steve Allen ShowThe Steve Allen Show is an American variety show hosted by Steve Allen from June 1956 to June 1960 on NBC, from September 1961 to December 1961 on ABC, and in first-run syndication from 1962 to 1964....
, and others. In the early 1970s, Pass and guitarist
Herb EllisMitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
were performing together regularly at Donte's jazz club in Los Angeles. This collaboration led to Pass and Ellis recording the very first album on the new
Concord JazzConcord Records is a U.S. record label now based in Beverly Hills, California. Originally known as Concord Jazz, it was established in 1972 as an off-shoot of the Concord Jazz Festival in Concord, California by festival founder Carl Jefferson, a local automobile dealer and jazz fan who sold his...
label, entitled simply
Jazz/Concord (#CJS-1), along with bassist
Ray BrownRaymond Matthews Brown was an American jazz double bassist.-Biography:Ray Brown was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had piano lessons from the age of eight. After noticing how many pianists attended his high school, he thought of taking up the trombone, but was unable to afford one...
and drummer
Jake HannaJake Hanna was an American jazz drummer.Hanna first performed in his home town of Boston, and was the house drummer at Storyville for a number of years in the 1950s and 1960s. He played with Toshiko Akiyoshi , Maynard Ferguson , Marian McPartland , and Woody Herman's Orchestra...
. In the early 1970s, Pass also collaborated on a series of music books, and his
Joe Pass Guitar Style (written with Bill Thrasher) is considered a leading improvisation textbook for students of jazz.
Norman GranzNorman Granz was an American jazz music impresario and producer.Granz was a fundamental figure in American jazz, especially from about 1947 to 1960...
, the producer of
Jazz at the PhilharmonicJazz at the Philharmonic, or JATP, was the title of a series of jazz concerts, tours and recordings produced by Norman Granz....
and the founder of
Verve RecordsVerve Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded by Norman Granz in 1956, absorbing the catalogues of his earlier labels, Clef Records and Norgran Records , and material which had been licensed to Mercury previously.-Jazz and folk origins:The Verve...
signed Pass to Granz's new
Pablo RecordsPablo Records was a record label founded by Norman Granz in 1972, some ten years after he had sold his jazz labels to MGM Records....
label in 1970. In 1974, Pass released his landmark solo album
Virtuoso on Pablo Records. Also in 1974, Pablo Records released the album
The TrioThe Trio is a 1973 live album by Oscar Peterson, Joe Pass and Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen.At the Grammy Awards of 1975, The Trio won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group.-Reception:...
featuring Pass,
Oscar PetersonOscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, and
Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen- Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 * Kirk in Copenhagen 1963 * Ben Webster in Denmark 1965-1971 Live at Danish Radio studios, Jazzhus Montmartre and Odd Fellow Palæet - Universal Music Denmark*One Flight Up 1964 *Sunday Walk 1969 - Discography :* My Name Is Albert Ayler 1963 (with...
. At the
Grammy Awards of 1975The 17th Grammy Awards were presented March 1, 1975, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1974.- Award winners :*Record of the Year...
,
The Trio won the
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a GroupThe Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album is an award that will start being presented in 2012.The Award was previously called Best Instrumental Jazz Album, Individual or Group from 1959 to 2011. The award will formally be discontinued from 2012 in a major overhaul of Grammy categories...
. As part of the Pablo Records "stable," Pass also recorded with
Benny CarterBennett Lester Carter was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader. He was a major figure in jazz from the 1930s to the 1990s, and was recognized as such by other jazz musicians who called him King...
,
Milt JacksonMilton "Bags" Jackson was an American jazz vibraphonist, usually thought of as a bebop player, although he performed in several jazz idioms...
,
Herb EllisMitchell Herbert "Herb" Ellis was an American jazz guitarist. Perhaps best known for his 1950s membership in the trio of pianist Oscar Peterson, Ellis was also a staple of west-coast studio recording sessions, and was described by critic Scott Yanow as "an excellent bop-based guitarist with a...
,
Zoot SimsJohn Haley "Zoot" Sims was an American jazz saxophonist, playing mainly tenor and soprano.-Biography:He was born in Inglewood, California, the son of vaudeville performers Kate Haley and John Sims. Growing up in a performing family, Sims learned to play both drums and clarinet at an early age...
,
Duke EllingtonEdward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington was an American composer, pianist, and big band leader. Ellington wrote over 1,000 compositions...
,
Dizzy GillespieJohn Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
,
Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
,
Count BasieWilliam "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, and others.
Pass and Ella Fitzgerald recorded six albums together on Pablo Records, toward the end of Fitzgerald's career:
Take Love EasyTake Love Easy is a 1973 studio album by Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the guitarist Joe Pass.-History:This album is the first of four studio albums that Ella recorded with Pass, and it was the latest in a long line of duets for Ella with just one other instrument...
(1973),
Fitzgerald and Pass... AgainFitzgerald and Pass...Again is a 1976 studio album by Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by jazz guitarist Joe Pass, the second of four duet albums they recorded together, after Take Love Easy ....
(1976), "Hamburg Duets - 1976" (1976), "Sophisticated Lady" (1975, 1983),
Speak LoveSpeak Love is a 1983 studio album by the American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the jazz guitarist Joe Pass....
(1983), and
Easy Living (1986).
In 1994, Joe Pass died from
liver cancerLiver tumors or hepatic tumors are tumors or growths on or in the liver . Several distinct types of tumors can develop in the liver because the liver is made up of various cell types. These growths can be benign or malignant...
in
Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
at the age of 65.
Speaking about
Nuages: Live at Yoshi's, Volume 2,
Jim FergusonJim Ferguson is an American guitarist, composer, music educator, author, and music journalist/editor.Born in Dayton, Ohio, Jim Ferguson began his early music education playing the trombone at age 7, and then after eight years of study, switched to the guitar at age 15...
wrote: "The follow up to 1993's
Joe Pass & Co. Live At Yoshi's, this release was colored by sad circumstances: both bassist Monty Budwig and Pass were stricken with fatal illnesses. Nevertheless, all concerned, including drummer Colin Bailey and second guitarist John Pisano, play up to their usual high levels.... Issued posthumously, this material is hardly sub-standard. Bristling with energy throughout, it helps document the final stages in the career of a player who, arguably, was the greatest mainstream guitarist since
Wes MontgomeryJohn Leslie "Wes" Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is widely considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Russell Malone, Emily...
."
Legacy
In addition to his ensemble performances, the jazz community regards Joe Pass as an influential solo guitarist.
New York Magazine said of him, "Joe Pass looks like somebody's uncle and play guitar like nobody's business. He's called "the world's greatest" and often compared to Paganini for his virtuosity. There is a certain purity to his sound that makes him stand out easily from other first-rate jazz guitarists."His solo style was marked by an advanced linear technique, sophisticated harmonic sense, counterpoint between improvised lead lines, bass figures and chords, spontaneous modulations, and transitions from fast tempos to rubato passages. He would regularly add what he called "color tones" to his compositions, to give what he believed was a more sophisticated and "funkier" sound. He would often use melodic counterpoint during improvisation, move lines and chords chromatically or play melodies by solely shifting chords.
Pass's early style (influenced by guitarist
Django ReinhardtDjango Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...
and saxophonist
Charlie ParkerCharles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
), was marked by fast single-note lines and a flowing melodic sense. Pass had the unusual lifelong habit of breaking his guitar picks and playing only with the smaller part. As Pass made the transition from ensemble to solo guitar performance, he preferred to abandon the pick altogether, and play fingerstyle. He found this enabled him to execute his harmonic concepts more effectively. His series of solo albums,
Virtuoso (volumes 1 through 4) are a demonstration of Pass's refined technique.
Joe Pass let some instrument manufacturers use his name, but he only used those instruments to fulfill its engagement against those brands, or as travelling ones. He really used to play a Gibson ES-175 guitar (mainly) and a guitar made for him by master crafter Jimmy D'Aquisto; for a time he also played a
Fender JaguarThe Fender Jaguar is an electric guitar introduced in 1962. A descendant of the Jazzmaster, the Jaguar quickly caught on in the emerging Surf music scene...
, a rather unusual choice of guitar for jazz (being associated more with
surf musicSurf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was particularly popular between 1961 and 1965, has subsequently been revived and was highly influential on subsequent rock music...
).
EpiphoneThe Epiphone Company is a musical instrument manufacturer founded in 1873 by Anastasios Stathopoulos. Epiphone was bought by Chicago Musical Instrument Company, which also owned Gibson Guitar Corporation, in 1957. Epiphone was Gibson's main rival in the archtop market...
has produced an edition of the
Emperor line of
semi-acoustic guitarA semi-acoustic guitar or hollow-body electric is a type of electric guitar with both a sound box and one or more electric pickups. This is not the same as an electric acoustic guitar, which is an acoustic guitar with the addition of pickups or other means of amplification, either added by the...
in his honour. Previously
Ibanezis a Japanese guitar brand owned by Hoshino Gakki. Based in Nagoya, Aichi, Japan, Hoshino Gakki were one of the first Japanese musical instrument companies to gain a significant foothold in import guitar sales in the United States and Europe, as well as the first brand of guitars to mass produce...
had a Joe Pass model jazz guitar, as they continue to for influential jazz guitarists
George BensonGeorge Benson is a ten Grammy Award winning American musician, whose production career began at the age of twenty-one as a jazz guitarist....
and
Pat MethenyPatrick Bruce "Pat" Metheny is an American jazz guitarist and composer.One of the most successful and critically acclaimed jazz musicians to come to prominence in the 1970s and '80s, he is the leader of the Pat Metheny Group and is also involved in duets, solo works and other side projects...
.
Selected bibliography
- Mel Bay Presents Joe Pass "Off the Record". Mel Bay, 1993. ISBN 1-56222-687-8
- Complete Joe Pass. Mel Bay, 2003. ISBN 0-7866-6747-8
- Miyakaku, Takao. Joe Pass. Tokyo: Seiunsha, 2000. ISBN 4-434-00455-7 (photograph collection)
External links