I’m a huge Joe Pass fan.
When I started getting into jazz guitar back in 1998, one of the first videos I watched was a Joe Pass concert video in my old music college library. It was life changing & confusing at the same time. On one hand, I loved it. On the other hand, I had no clue what Joe was doing. It was like watching an experienced magician do magic tricks. I was in awe. Coming from a classical guitar background, it was attractive but different from what my young ear were used to.
Over the years, I learned more of what Joe did & understood more of it (even if I couldn’t really play like him). When I saw Barry release this video, I was immediately very curious. I love Barry’s playing and teaching so I was interested to see his take on this.
This Barry Greene instructional video is a 1 hour & 10 minute masterclass going deep into the Joe Pass Solo Guitar Style.
Barry begins by explaining the common chord voicing types that Joe uses in many of his arrangements. Then he uses the song, ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ as a way of exploring classic devices that Joe uses.
Barry goes through each part of the song, explaining how the harmony works & how to reharmonize the song. Barry really focuses on explaining each the melody notes and that harmony-melody relationship throughout the entire piece.
This video is a good for anyone who’s interested to learn about reharmonization techniques especially for solo guitar playing. Barry also explains both Joe’s rubato style and his in-time playing.
In conclusion, I feel that Barry does a good job capturing the essence of Joe’s style in this video. If you play solo jazz guitar, I think this video is worth watching as supplementary material to Joe’s classic instructional videos. It’s definitely interesting to hear Barry explain Joe’s playing (it’s different than hearing Joe talk about it), because Barry’s use of more academic terms for voicings like Drop-2, Drop-3 and Drop-2&4 which I don’t remember hearing Joe use in his own instructional videos.
Pros: Great material and take on Joe’s solo guitar style.
Cons: Does not include discussion on Joe’s linear playing in the context of his solo guitar style or thoughts on the balance between line & chordal based playing.
TLDR: If you’re into Joe Pass’s solo guitar style, this video helps you learn more about Joe’s approach. If you’re a more experienced jazz guitar player, you may already know a lot of the material (harmonically speaking). However, if you’re a solo guitar info geek, this is a worthy addition to your library.
You can purchase this video here: https://barrygreenevideolessons.vhx.tv/topic-driven-lessons/videos/joe-pass-style
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