me,” he recalled, “and I listened to the saxes and trumpets, trying to play like them.” Unfortunately, he joined the many jazz artists <strong>of</strong> the era who fell prey to heroin addiction. From 1949 to 1960, “I played all over the States in those identical cocktail lounges with the red leather seating,” Pass recalled, “usually for a week or two at most... All that time I wasted, I was a bum, doing nothin’. I could have made it much sooner but for drugs.” Pass straightened out in 1961, and his career took <strong>of</strong>f. His first album as leader, Catch Me (Pacific <strong>Jazz</strong> PJ 73), debuted to raves in 1963. Two years later, Pass joined the George Shearing Quintet. Pass teamed with pianist Oscar Peterson in 1969, and his 1973 duet album with Herb Ellis, <strong>Jazz</strong> Concord (Concord <strong>Jazz</strong> CJ-1), brought him a still-higher pr<strong>of</strong>ile. Pass unveiled his extraordinary solo style on 1974’s Virtuoso (Pablo 2310 707), the album which effectively made a guitar hero <strong>of</strong> Joe Pass. Watching him play “Original Blues in A” from a mid- 1970s BBC broadcast, it’s easy to see why. Pass drops a blues cliché long enough to remind us where we are, then plays dazzling circles around it. The Ellingtonian chestnut, “Prelude to a Kiss,” provides Pass a springboard for breathtaking cascades <strong>of</strong> notes and richly textured harmonic inventions. While he could play punchy and fast with a pick, Pass preferred to use his fingers for solos such as these. “Playing with your fingers is much better for solo guitar,” he declared. “You can get counterpoint, add bass lines.” In an interview with Tim Schneckloth (down beat, March 1984), Pass elaborated on this approach: “The bass lines, for instance, aren’t always happening. They’re implied sometimes... But by having motion — keeping the whole thing moving with substitute chords, a strong pulse, and so on — it sounds like it’s all happening at the same time.” 16
17 Photo by Tom Copi