Re: style of playing of joe pass

Comments intersperesed...

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 23:56:55 -0400, Joe Finn wrote:


<clay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote

I attended a Joe Pass seminar in 1975 or '76 and spent two days
listening to him play, talk, crack jokes, etc. Joe was very much an
"ear" player. He thought of chords as major, minor, or dominant, and
the color tones were just that - color tones. He emphasized simple,
economical fingerings, often using barres so as to leave other fingers
free for adding melody notes. He told us things like "you should be
able to go to the bathroom, come back and still know where you are in
the tune" and "don't practice scales, play melodies." He told us the
most important thing about bass line + comp playing was the bass line,
that the chords were almost not relevant.


What you are saying about Pass' way of thinking about chords
is exactly what I was referring to in another thread. To me,
this way of thinking is very good. It lends itself well to
what you later say about him creating chord melody on the
spot. On his solo guitar video (I never had the opportunity
to attend one of his seminars), he gives an alternative to
practicing scales. He says to pick a melody note and play
any chord underneath it. Then, starting with the lowest
note of the chord you played, play its "chord scale",
ending at the melody note you played. Then pick another
chord under the same melody note, etc. I did not fully
understand what a "chord scale" was, so I just looked at
the major scale the chord would come from, and alter its
notes according to what was in the chord (i.e. b3, b5, etc).
I found that video to be quite useful, containing a lot of
information in a relatively short space. He made it clear
on that video (at least to my understanding) that he did
not delve into theory in his discussions, preferring to
consider the sounds he was making, but at the same time,
it was obvious that he knew theory but felt that going
off on a tangent with it was not the way he chose to
approach music, so he was not coming across as if he
had bypassed that at all. He seemed to always emphasize
LISTENING to the sounds we are making, and to practice
whatever we practiced in terms of the music we wanted
to play.

It's true Joe used a lot of chords and subs, and that was just his way
of varying the harmony without resorting to a lot of close voiced
chords. He said he didn't like to use the Johnny Smith type chords
because he felt they were too difficult to grab and hindered
improvisation. I think the cycles he used were probably from listening
to Art Tatum.


On that same solo guitar video, Joe Pass made a statement
that I never forgo. He said that if the player has to
struggle to play, the listener has to struggle to listen.
He said that he kept his chords simple and easy to grab
so that his playing would flow smoothly. When I say
"simple", I don't mean that Joe Pass played simple
chords, instead he was well aware of the sounds he was
creating and and what harmony his "grips" implied. That
is quite sophisticated.

You might want to remember that Joe was a pro guitarist in Johnstown,
PA by the time he was 15 or so. He was practicing and playing a lot
and I don't think learned any theory at all until later, and even then
he didn't seem to think it was all that important. A guy at our
seminar kept asking about modes and Joe finally kind of snapped at the
guy and told him he could leave and get his money back.

Joe was a fantastic player who I still think opened a lot of doors for
guitar players by improvising his chord melodies on the spot. This
isn't to say there weren't other exceptional chord melody players, but
Joe was AFAIK the only one making a touring career out of it at the
time. Mimi Fox, Martin Taylor, and Tuck Andress are three who've
admirably taken the torch.


Thanks for posting this, Clay.

Tony B


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: It aint simple
    ... Do you learn to play a specific part like rhythm or lead? ... work out chord progression by listening to bass ...
    (alt.guitar.beginner)
  • Re: Is perfect pitch trainable?
    ... > description of how you go about learning a song. ... They vary in their ability to play a tune ... (or if I'm listening to it without an instrument handy, ... > write up a chord chart. ...
    (rec.music.theory)
  • Re: Wes conversion to minor
    ... > Wes would also do the opposite, play a dom7 against a minor chord. ... Cmaj7 over the D7. ... Listening to Mingus and Dolphy will do that. ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz)
  • joe pass says..
    ... I was just listening to a Joe Pass solo boot from '78 to inspire (or ... "it's easy to play, or easier to play, when people are listening ... ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz)
  • Re: Gig:Pittsburgh:CD release
    ... to play a concert at the Manchester Craftsman Guild with the Duquesne ... you probably know Joe Negri. ... the street can identify a diminshed 7 chord as a "Joe Negri chord!" ...
    (rec.music.makers.guitar.jazz)