INTRODUCTION TO THE JOE PASS GUITAR STYLE
by Wolf Marshall
Joe Pass breathed
new life into John Lewis’ West Coast classic "Django" on his landmark For
Django album of 1964. Pass’ solo is definitive on this exceptional track and
stands as a virtual textbook of jazz guitar playing. According to John Pisano, who was the
rhythm guitarist on the recording, Joe used his early 1960s ES-175D and a small Fender
combo amp. In this lesson you’ll learn....
swing 8th-note rhythm
arpeggios
bebop sequence lines
Play Audio and Listen
The bulk of
Joe’s opening line is in continuous 8th notes. These are played throughout the solo
as swing 8th notes. That is, in units of one quarter and one 8th per beat. Imagine
an 8th-note triplet for each beat. Then simply tie the first two two 8ths together to
produce a quarter note. This leaves the the third 8th note to be played as the second note
of each pattern. The result creates a triplet feel for each beat when playing 8th note
lines. This is also called shuffle feel or swing feel. Pass plays the entire phrase with
this feel.
Joe’s solo
approach is chord-based. His lines reflect definite chord sounds and chord changes. In
fact even without the backing track it is easy to hear the chord movement in his melodies.
In the opening phrase Pass weaves his line around the challenging and active progression
of Fm-Gm7b5-C7-F7-Bb7-Eb7-Ab7-Db7. The first two bars make use of two familiar Pass
melodic signatures. These are arpeggios: the descending Fm9 arpeggio in bar 1
(Ab-G-F-C-Ab) and the descending C augmented arpeggio in bar 2 (C-Ab-E-C). The F minor
arpeggio is played over the I chord of the key and the C augmented arpeggio over the V
chord. Incidentally that’s how Joe thinks. He reduces all the complicated harmonic
twists and turns of jazz into simple tonic and dominant functions.
Pass plays a
sequential line through the modulating progression in bars 3-5. This is organized into
tight four-note figures which define each chord change. For F7, Bb7 and Eb7 Joe employs
the four-note ascending figure that John Coltrane exploited in "Giant Steps."
This is the pattern of root-2nd-3rd-5th, a derivation of the major pentatonic scale. It
can also be seen as an arpeggio with an added 2nd or 9th. Each chord receives this figure
based on a different root note. Pass concludes the opening phrase with a descending scale
line over Ab7 (Ab Mixolydian mode) and a characteristic Charlie Parker-inspired bebop lick
over Db7. This also implies a dominant seventh sound in Db and includes a very specific
downward leap followed by a rising scale line to the seventh of the chord Cb.
