Joe Pass has been around a good while, but only recently has he hit the top, over here at least, largely due to his appearances with Ella and the Pablo releases – a superb one with Ella herself and a hardly less notable set with Duke. This new one (December ’73) has him on his own – really on his own; no drums or bass to help or frustrate the free flights of fancy. The arrangement works most admirably.
As he plays here, Joe Pass, like Earl Hines, doesn’t need ‘rhythm acc.’: his resources are sufficient in themselves, because he uses the whole range of his instrument and the support normally supplied by any accompanists is implied in the overall execution. Hear All The Things, where Pass actually puts in what is in effect a walking bass solo, as he also does less overtly in other places.
But the real joy of the album is to hear a jazz guitarist exploiting the range and scope of the guitar, supplying counter melodies and rhythmic counterpoints, changing from horizontal (melodic) to vertical (harmonic) playing, and often skilfully combining the two. In fact, given six strings and the normal complement of fingers and thumbs, a complete act of making music takes place.
What for me tends to diminish total pleasure is the tone quality. I don’t mean the recording, which is rather too close but otherwise satisfactory, but the tonal aspects of the instrument itself. It might have been better if it had been either wholly acoustic or more amplified: as it is, the tone is nondescript, especially in the middle. The sound, Julian Bream once insisted to me, is what matters. It applies also to the electric guitar. I have too a suspicion that the instrument here has a rather clumsy action: some of Joe’s fast runs seem to sound cluttered, but I don’t think it’s his fingers that cause it. In spite of this, here is a very fine, imaginative, and absorbing set of solo guitar work. Burnett James
Discography
Night And Day; Stella By Starlight; Here’s That Rainy Day; My Old Flame; How High The Moon; Cherokee; Sweet Lorraine; Have You Met Miss Jones?; ’Round Midnight; All The Things You Are; Blues For Alican; The Song Is You
Pablo 2310 708 £2.50
