Notablog

This post also appears on Medium.

As a very young kid, I was exposed to amazingly diverse music—from Chubby Checker, Joey Dee & the Starlighters, The Beatles and all of Motown to Jerry Vale, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Nancy Wilson, and some of the greatest jazz instrumentalists of all time. (And don’t forget the “Ben-Hur” soundtrack, with which I fell in love from the time I was in the womb!) If the music had any kind of rhythm at all, I was known to walk around a coffee table to the beat.

That may have been a bit more difficult with some of the breakneck tempos played by the great jazz guitarist Joe Pass, but I enjoyed his music from the earliest moments of my childhood. Pass’s “For Django”, and his 12-string guitar tribute to “Great Motion Picture Themes” were among my favorite albums.

Pass would go on to record so many remarkable albums—among them a string of “Virtuoso” solo sets, terrific ensemble collections with pianist Oscar Peterson, six intimate volumes with Ella Fitzgerald and extraordinary sessions with Carmen McRae and Sarah Vaughan.

It wasn’t until I was 17 years old that I got the chance to see Joe Pass in-person along with my mother and sister, who were also huge fans. On June 28, 1977, we attended a concert at Carnegie Hall dubbed “Solo Flight.” Each of the musicians on the bill performed alone on the celebrated stage before they all united as an ensemble for the show’s finale. In addition to Joe Pass, who had already recorded three “Virtuoso” solo albums by that time, the featured musicians were all legendary figures of the instrument they played. The line-up included bassist Charles Mingus, drummer Art Blakey, and pianist John Lewis, as well as the father of the jazz violin, Joe Venuti, and vibraphonist extraordinaire Gary Burton.

At one point, with the hall silent, John Lewis began playing “Django,” an original composition dedicated to the jazz guitar great, Django Reinhardt, and a signature tune of the Modern Jazz Quartet, of which Lewis was the musical director.  My first encounter with “Django” was as the opening track on Pass’s own Reinhardt tribute, “For Django”.  So, the moment I heard the initial notes of the composition, I prepared myself for what I thought would be a lovely version by the man who wrote the tune.

Unfortunately, Lewis’s slow-tempo solo rendition began to resemble a funeral dirge for those of us who were dying of the heat. We were all dealing with skull-crushing temperatures because Carnegie Hall’s air conditioning system was busted. And it was getting warmer by the minute. My sister and I glanced over at our mother, who was sitting to our left, her pants rolled up, sweat dripping from her brow. The audience was so quiet, and even we weren’t sure if it was because they were transfixed by Lewis’s performance or because they had all passed out. Through the silence, my mother suddenly let out a long, audible sigh. Mom’s heat-induced sigh prompted a chuckle from me—and that led to a cascading effect of infectious giggles, first from my sister, and then from a few very sweaty folks around us. Tears were rolling down our faces just trying to contain the laughter, as we tried desperately not to disturb John Lewis’s performance.

Though the musicians were all wonderful, the excessive heat and excessive laughter dominated our memories of that night for years to come.

I was fortunate enough to see several of the performers in other settings over the years—including Gary Burton who was a featured musician on Chick Corea’s exhilarating “Mad Hatter” Tour.

But I was intent on seeing Joe Pass in his own setting—and that happened on July 12, 1981. I went with my brother Carl to see Pass playing solo at the Village Gate, which sat at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village. It was another hot summer night in New York City, but at least this venue had air conditioning! Pass shared a double bill with saxophonist Sonny Stitt’s quartet.

Unlike at Carnegie Hall, the Village Gate management didn’t care if you brought an audio cassette recorder with you into the venue. I was determined to record the performance as a keepsake. Recently, I rediscovered that tape and digitized it. There was obvious wear and tear on the audio from age and humidity, resulting in some warping and various dropouts. I don’t have access to the kinds of sophisticated tools to achieve audio restoration.

Despite these enormous drawbacks, I believe that there is a great benefit in having uploaded this recording to bring it to a wider audience on YouTube. The freshness of Joe Pass’s improvisations, the impeccable character of his musicality, and the metronomic certainty of his rhythm—heard in the tapping of his foot while he played—are all evident in this recording, however poor the audio quality.

It should be noted that on this date in 1994, May 23, Joe Pass died. Hence, this newest YouTube slideshow is a poignant personal memory that I share as a celebration of the musical legacy he left behind.

Track Listing

1. ‘Round Midnight (Thelonious Monk)
2. Li’l Darlin’ (Neal Hefti)
3. Paco De Lucia (Joe Pass)
4. My Funny Valentine (Richard Rodgers / Lorenz Hart)
5. Night and Day (Cole Porter)
6. Misty (Erroll Garner / Johnny Burke)
7. This Masquerade (Leon Russell)
8. Sultry (Joe Pass)
9. Cherokee (Ray Noble)