Sweet Georgia Brown - Ella Fitzgerald

Performace de Ella Fitzgerald em 1974.

Blues Studies from Joe Pass Guitar Styles

When I was younger my teacher Paul Contos turned me on to a book called Joe Pass Guitar Styles.

This book had a big influence on my linear concept and I played out of it a lot. Joe's lines are pretty close to something like the Platonic ideal of Be-Bop lines. I used them as a model in learning to create long connected lines. I would play through the exercises until they were under my fingers and then I would try things like altering notes, displacing notes, using just the general shapes to create novel lines, and then just using Joe's changes to create my own lines.
I recently bought myself another copy of this book and I've been using it with my students. There are a few parts of the book that are guitar specific, but most of it is perfect for horn players. When you limit yourself to only using connected 8th note lines it forces you to focus more on the overarching shapes of your lines and it also makes you think more about how your lines connect from change to change. If you practice this way it also prevents you from playing as many familiar licks.

I highly recommend this book for any serious students of Jazz. (Blues exercises excerpted from Joe Pass Guitar Styles)
http://davidvaldez.blogspot.com/2010/06/blues-studies-from-joe-pass-guitar.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2FALDc+%28Casa+Valdez+Studios%29

Joe Pass - Do Nothin' Till You Hear from Me (1976)

Joe Pass....

Born: January 13, 1929

Joe Pass almost didn't make it as a musician due to his early battle with drug addiction. But following a successful rehab at Synanon and a recording session with fellow recovered musicians entitled Sounds of Synanon, the guitarist was signed by Dick Bock to the Pacific Jazz label. Pass made several albums as a leader and sideman for Bock, though work started drying up in the late 1960s as rock dominated the music marketplace.


But it was when Joe Pass met impressario Norman Granz that the guitarist's career took off. Granz signed him to his new Pablo label in the early 1970s and recorded him extensively, as a soloist (especially the oustanding Virtuoso series), in duos, trios and as a part of many studio and concert jam sessions. By this time Pass had developed such a virtuoso technique on his instrument that he was considered the “Art Tatum of the guitar” by many critics. Pass especially excelled in his many recordings with piano great Oscar Peterson, as the two men were energized by the stimulation of playing with a fellow master, often at a ridiculous tempo.

Strangely, Joe Pass was rarely happy with his recordings, telling liner note writer Ken Dryden that “I always feel like I could have done better.” Following a single session as a leader for Telarc, Pass made one final CD with Roy Clark (of Hee Haw fame): Roy Clark & Joe Pass Play Hank Williams, though a number of previously unissued collections of his recordings would appear after his passing. Joe Pass died of liver cancer on May 23, 1994 in Los Angeles.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=10143