Search - Joe Pass :: For Django

An Overlooked Classic!!!!

G. Case | Indianapolis, IN United States | 11/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Besides his solo albumns, this is my favorite Joe Pass Record! If you are a student trying to assimilate the bebop language this would probably be one of the best guitar recordings you could listen to and transcribe.

Hear are my reasons...

1. the playing sounds so inspired, natural, and alive

2. it's just so much fun to listen to

3. Joe's concept seems to work better for some tunes like "All the things you are." Wes breaks my heart and you should definitely hear him and learn from him but his concept is totally different.

4. it is better to transcribe entire solos... and the solos on this record aren't 10 minutes long.

5. this is the definition of playing "in the pocket"



If you like this one, try out Joyspring - its a live recording



p.s. I am Jazz guitarist/teacher with a degree in classical guitar"

A tribute doesn't mean to copy the model

Jazzcat | Genoa, Italy Italy | 03/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Here Joe Pass played a tribute to one of his heroes, Django Reinhardt without copying him. Why copy another musician? This would be really wrong! As a total master and an absolute artist himself, Joe knew what does it mean to have a personality in music (and WHY not to clone other musicians). So he tributed Django, maintaining his own personality and ideas. It needs an amateur to think that a giant like Joe Pass should pay a tribute to Django trying to sound like him, mimicking him. It is so ridicolous that it almost makes me laugh. A lot of guys who wrote bad reviews here probably are amateur Jazz musicians or casual listeners that judged superficially this album from Joe maybe expecting something near Django's gypsy Jazz. Nothing more wrong. Joe played himself here, think about it ... why copying Django from Joe's perspective? If one want to listen to Django's music, he should buy Django's records. Of course. You buy a Joe Pass record because you want to hear Joe Pass playing, maybe Django's compositions, but in Joe's own manner. This is absolutly obvious!! This is just the same spirit of jazz. Jazz is THIS thing. You don't buy a record from Oscar Peterson because you want to hear the songs written by Cole Porter for instance, but because you want to hear Oscar's interpretations of those songs. It is the spirit of Jazz. The musician is the most important thing in Jazz (not the material), his ideas, his personality. So even if I love Django I wouldn't want to hear Joe mimick Django. Tha one would be a really UN-artistic record, an horrible experience. I know that Joe is a MASTER musician, a musicians' musician himself and that he wouldn't do this for the world. He recorded a Charlie Parker tribute too, but he didn't sound exactly like Bird there just to make some uneducated listener happy. He expressed his love to Bird (like here he expressed his love to Django), Bird was one of his greatest influences, but he didn't copy him there, just like he did not copy Django in this album. So this is proudly a Joe Pass album. And one of his best I have to say. I love his solo efforts (the fourth is his best,... he played only the acoustic guitar, terrific ..) but I prefer his bebop sides. This is one of his best (another very good one is the live date Joyspring). His ideas are splendid here as they are always been by the way, his groove absolutly in shape, his harmonic conceptions wonderful. Moreover this disc has a wonderful balanced sound because there's another guitar in the rhytmic team, Joe Pisano. Another extremely talented player by the way ... but here the star is not Joe Pisano and is neither Django. The star is Joe Pass. Django is the one who, if he was alive, would like a lot this tribute and would understand completly why Joe sounded so different from him. Because Joe is a star as big as Django himself with a style strong as Django's. A wonderful album, finally remastered and with its original cover. I did buy the japanese edition and I am absolutly happy I did. An album that I will listen for the rest of my life (uh, I'm a pro Jazz guitarist, didn't I tell you?)."