1 comments about Mel Bay Essential Jazz Lines : Guitar the Style of Joe Pass.

1. This is a good book for jazz ideas (phrases). Every Jazz guitarist can use these ideas and incorporate them in his music. There are ideas for minor chords , Dominant Chords and Major Chords.
   
   However , if you're looking for a book on learning how to play Jazz, then this is the wrong book.For example, It will not help you develop your (mental or physical) skills or help you understand Jazz forms.

1 comments about The Joe Pass Collection.

1. I really just wanted the sheet music to Pasta Blues but this contains an amazing collection of Joe's work. The sheet music is as accurate as anything I've seen. The TAB supplied is very good as well, although in a number of places I can find fingerings for the same passages that work much better for me. As always, if you can read music treat the TAB as a guide. I've been happily working through this book for over a month now.
   
   Note that some of the songs you can't get as audio clips online, so you'll need to buy some old CD's of Joe's.

5 comments about The Best of Joe Pass: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Styles and Techniques of the Jazz Guitar Virtuoso.

1. This is a really good book if you want to improve your playing!! A couple of songs in this tab book are not that very exciting but about 80% of the songs are really great and challenging to play.



2. Joe Pass was one of the greatest guitarists of the 20th Century. It's a shame he's not with us anymore but, while he was here, he left a large amount of his music so that we could enjoy his artistry. Ever since I first heard him, I've tried to copy his technique. When I found this book, I was excited and couldn't wait to get it. Unfortunately for me, this book concentrates on his single-note solos (with one song on his chord-melody technique over a blues progression). Don't get me wrong. His single note playing was great but I was really hoping to learn some of his chord-melody solos. That was just a preference of mine. But as I listened to the solos, I found myself asking, "How'd he do that?" So, this book turned out to be great, although it was not what I expected. Then again, some of the greatest things in life come by surprise.



3. Joe Pass needs little introduction, any web search will bring up a plethora of history on this great guitarist. Solo, his work is unparalleled, trapeze artistry without the net. I'm really glad Wolf Marshall has worked up this insightful study into the styling of Joe Pass, it's a wonderful way to get into the music a bit deeper, to accomplish and perfect you own chops, to grow in your guitar vocabulary.
   
   I'm playing Bass mostly, but ANY insight to any instrument only adds to the ear, which translates to the hand. Thank you Joe Pass for your music, and kudos to Wolf Marshall for opening up the music for us.



4. This is not a good book as it's "anazlyzed" but someone who transcribes, can play transcriptions but has no clue as to how Jazz is really formulated at all....rockers do not know how to teach jazz except to copy it and that's what this book is all about, guesses. Not a valid book.



5. Got the book a few weeks ago. I was inspired by seeing that kid playing the song "Django" on YouTube. He got the transcription from Wolf's book.
   
   The CD is good enough to enjoy by itself. There is no "Band in a box" backing here. Just real musicians playing really well. Marshall hammers all the solos with total accuracy. The tone is there as well as the flow.
   
   Keep in mind that this is not for beginners. However, if you are a rock, blues player and really want to break away from the box system and sixteenth notes scalar runs, that's a good book to buy. Joe's playing is all over the neck + he uses a wide variety of techniques from finger picking to sweep picking.
   
   Jazz is a lot of work (and fun!) so if you are to spend hours and hours learning, learn from one of the best. Get this book.
   
   If you want to learn great stuff but in a less intimidating way, give a shot to Tom Dempsey "Classic Jazz Guitar Styles" (great backing tracks) or Fred Sokolow "The Roots of Jazz Guitar", these too guys will start you on Charlie Christian all the way up. Their solos are great but they are more fit for low intermediates and up.

1 comments about Joe Pass Guitar Style.

1. Simply put I've been using this book every time I want to add some fresh
   ideas to my playing. This is the constitution on how to make the guitar your own voice. If your serious about getting beyond playing power cords and soloing diatonically. This book will be with you the rest of your playing days. I've been using it for 20 years and I still find useful info out of it. I think it's a bit too much for beginers, but it won't hurt your playing if you feel overwhelmed with soo much info in such a small book. the key is to take to take it slow & have pateince. This and Ted Greene's "Cord Chemistry" are essential reads for any serious GTrist. Plus it's wrtten W/O Tabulature. Yeah
   Buy this Book now if you don't have it. The bible of how to play Jazz

No comments about Joe Pass Guitar Method.

3 comments about Joe Pass On Guitar with CD (Audio) (Cpp Media Video Transcription).

1. Joe takes a no-nonsense approach to jazz soloing. No modes, crazy scales, patterns or exercises here. Joe was a player, and his approach is direct.
   He categorizes lines as either major, minor or dominant, with a subdivision for altered dominant sounds. He solos over the three centers, while Don Mock comps behind him, and the solos are transcribed. He also plays and explains lines over the three basic chord types. The lines are great; classic Joe. The intro Blues in G alone is enough to stop most players in their tracks. I've offered any of my students who nail it a lunch on me.
   Although it's mostly lines, there's some chord stuff too. Two Blues in G, one solo and one duo, contain enough chord riffs to keep even the most advanced players busy for awhile, and the three songs in the performance section, (All the Things you Are, Joe's Blues, and Stella by Starlight), are just your 'typical' Joe Pass brilliant performances.
   I loved Joe's playing, saw him perform whenever he came around and got to meet him as well. He was a monstrous player. Easily the best pure jazz player I've ever seen, and I've seen most of them. When I met him he was near the end of his cancer battle, and he took the time to talk to me despite being tired and obviously sick. This book is a gift from Joe, and it stays on my music stand.
   I have the CD version and Joe cracks me up, with his dry humor and explanations. (For instance, slyly cutting on tuners).
   He also states that he uses very few arpeggios, but uses them in nearly every solo! But who cares. This guy was one of the top jazz players of all time (in my opinion one of the top three...Django, Joe and Lenny Breau, with all respect to Barney Kessel, Wes, Tal, Howard Roberts, Benson, Les Paul, et al).
   The lines in this book are great, and players from intermediate on up will get things at their own level, because the explanations are pretty simple. (and it has tab!).
   Save your money on all the 'How to play jazz solos' by a bunch of guys you've never heard of, get this book and dig in. And if you nail the first Blues in G, I'll buy you lunch.



2. Basically takes the form of a master class. Good transcription (TAB), and it's fun to hear Mr. Pass himself describe his approach to the guitar.



3. This book includes recommendations from Joe Pass himself. You would get a glimpse on how Joe Pass thinks. it is helpful to look at jazz from different views , so that you can build your own.

4 comments about Joe Pass Chord Solos: For Guitar, Vibes & All Keyboard Instruments.

1. Beware, there is no tab and it is thin.



2. Has a lot of great Joe Pass transcriptions of standards. Not as advanced as the recordings from Virtuoso but still a great place to get started with chord melody jazz guitar.



3. These are not "Chord Melodies". Rather they are chord improvisations over the changes of six tunes: Misty, Billie Joe, a Blues in Bb, Watch What Happens, Sunny and The Days of Wine and Roses.
   Very dense chord arrangements showing different harmonic possibilities with the basic changes. I recorded these as I learned them, so I could listen to them to really absorb the material.
   Joe gives no harmonic analysis at all, so it is up to the reader to figure out the theory, and boy, there's lots of it.
   I'm a professional jazz guitarist and teacher....playing nearly forty years, and I still review these and pick chord licks that I like, transpose them to other keys, positions and strings, analyze the voice leading, chord substitutions, etc. I've had this book for years, and lots of it has slowly seeped into my playing. I'll play a piece, pick a chord lick that I like (like any one of them), and then try to apply it to my improvisations in other tunes.
   In my opinion, for advanced players, this is one of the best books out there to dig into some really lush and melodic chord playing. I found it tough reading....and I'm a pretty advanced player. But I have worked through most of the major guitar books out there and this one is one of my mainstays.
   While I'm here, I'll also recommend:
   Fusion - Joe Diorio
   Joe Pass on Guitar
   Howard Roberts Guitar Manual Chord Melody
   For players new to jazz and not so advanced, a standard book is
   Mickey Baker Jazz Guitar Volume 1.



4. There are no chord grids - no tab - and many of the chords have no symbol above them. Like some of Joe Pass's earlier method books, this uses only standard notation. These solos are challenging to read, so unless you are a superb reader, you may want to write out the chord symbols above the music first.
   
   This book is a lot of work, but I have already learned a great deal about the Joe Pass style of chord improvisation. This is not a quick study!

4 comments about Joe Pass Guitar Chords.

1. I bought this book on the recommendation of Joe Satriani, who said, in an interview, that he first began to expand his guitar playing after a month or so of studying the chords in this book. I figured I'd give it a shot, because, let's face it - if Satriani found it useful, it can't be bad.

   I was pretty happy with the purchase. The book is intended, explicitly, for ear training purposes. It lists major chord groups (maj, min, 7th, etc) and within each group, Joe offers the substitutions that he uses for them. The chords are listed in standard notation and a box diagram, and there are intentionally no chord names listed to associate with them. By getting the different chord sounds and associating them with a shape, one can develop a pretty good ear for commonplace chord substitutions. This is definitely an important skill to have for an aspiring guitarist of any style - and essential for anyone who wants to be a versatile guitarist.

   The second section of the book goes through progressions of chords for each sound. These are generally used as turn-arounds, substitutions of multiple chords for a single one, or can be used as whole progressions. Again, there are no chord names listed here.

   The last section of this book is an actual list of common jazz progressions, and one blues progression that is apparently common for Joe Pass (and not quite so common in the rest of the guitar community - a good thing in my book). These are only slash chord charts, meaning that all you have is a few measures of slashes and the chord(s) to go in each by name. There are no diagrams or standard notation. Then, Joe goes through substitutions he uses for these common progressions. This section is incredibly useful.

   Unfortunately, the last part is also the only drawback of this book that I can see. Because the first two sections do not go over the chords associated with each chord name, this book does not stand alone unless the reader already has knowledge of varieties of chords available for stuff like Amaj7+5, D(b13), etc. That, coupled with the fact that the whole thing is only 24 pages long, is the reason for 4 stars instead of 5.

   All in all, this book is highly recommended. It will improve your playing tremendously, and within a short period of time.




2. My guitar teacher recommended this to me, and I was surprised when I got it. It was so short, compared to the Ted Greene bible of every chord ever made! Where were the chord names? Not even the roots were marked! What was I supposed to do with this book?
   
   My teacher told me to take each chord and try different roots on it. One shape can have several distinct functions. Record each voicing in a modal vamp that ascends chromatically each measure and practice playing a coherent line over it. Use one voicing to play a whole progression, or practice voice leading with many different chords. If you're willing to experiment, everything you really need to know about jazz chords is in this book.



3. This is a great book for someone more advanced than I am. I don't understand all the terms yet but I'm working on it. I know it will be a valuablr resource later in my development.



4. I disagree with the other glowing reviews of this book. I love Joe Pass and have great respect for him as a guitarist, but this book is very disappointing. It was probably ghost written, and I don't think that that person, or the people at Mel Bay put much effort into this book. I have found other Mel Bay books with errors in chords (TABS don't match the chords written in standard notation) etc.
   
   Two or the other reviewers say that this book was recommended by someone else (Joe Satriani and their teacher respectively) and seem to base part of their review on that recommendation. I've been playing guitar for 35 years and have had the book for 6 months and can't agree that this is a valuable resource.
   
   The book has two section (not three as another person said): (1) Chord Forms and (2) Chord Passages. The former is 10 pages long and is filled with about 15 chord patterns per page. Those chord patterns are presented in six groups: Major, Seventh, Augmented, Minor, Diminished, Minor Seventh Flat Fifth. It is important to realise that these are only chord shapes (all in C), and are not labeled in any way. Other reviewers have mentioned this as an annoyance. I think this is a fatal flaw in the book. There are a number of shapes with absolutely no indication what kind of chords they are and absolutely no indication how to use them or put them together.
   
   The second half, Chord Passages, has 5 pages of useful material showing how a few of the chord shapes from each category can be used in a passage. This gives some good examples of how to use the chord shapes and how they go together ... but again doesn't indicate what the chords are or what changes they might go over. This IS useful, but only marginally so. The last five pages of this section are filled with "Standard Pattern Chord Substitutions". The first example involves the pattern Dm7 .... Dm7 and gives 12 different chord substitutions. i.e. the first one says that you could instead play Dm7 ... Bb7... Eb9. That is ALL that is in this subsection - there are no chord shapes, no chords even written in standard notation - just the chord name. One reviewer called these slash chords. That is incorrect. A slash chord is a chord with a bass note other than the root on the bottom. What is here is only blank notation with a chord name written over top. Mildy interesting perhaps, but it has absolutely no connection with the first section. The first section had chord shapes without names. The second section has chord names without shapes.
   
   There is a half page of introduction from Joe at the beginning of the book, and another half page before the second section. In the first section Joe says "The purpose of the book is not to identify each chord by name, but to portray their sound in context with the category of being played. These are the chords I commonly use and improvise on when confronted with one of the six categories." Those two sentence are just about the only instructions on how to use the book. If you are really interested in Joe Pass's approach to chords I would suggest giving this book a pass and instead buying his excellent DVD "Joe Pass Solo Jazz Guitar". That DVD presents Joe's approach to chordal playing in his own words and much much better than this underwhelming, thin book from Mel Bay. I think that that DVD really helps to explain Joe's chordal concepts in ways that this book does not. He says something like "some chord books are filled with 10,000 chords, but what they don't tell you is that 9,000 of those are worthless. When you watch Jazz guitarists most are playing the same chord grips." So it is important to know those 'grips' or chord shapes. But in the DVD he most certainly does explain that a chord is a 6th, or 13th, or 9th raised 5th or whatever (unlike this book). He doesn't say, as this book implies in the first section, that it is not necessary to know what kind of chord you are playing other than major or minor etc.
   
   I am sure there are many ways that the information in this book could be useful, but Mel Bay couldn't be bothered to include a few more pages to make it so. I can't recommend this book as it is. Instead buy the DVD previously mentioned, or Ted Greene's chord book, either of Joe Beck's DVDs or even Jimmy Bruno's DVD (surprisingly the Paganini of Jazz guitar is OK at teaching about chords).

4 comments about Jazz Solos for Guitar: REH Pro Licks Book/CD Pack (REH Pro Licks).

1. Years ago I had bought this course when it was all on cassette and cost $75 a pop. I had bought the blues course and liked it, then got this thinking that it might help. Unfortunately I didn't appreciate jazz as much back then and decide to exchange it for a more "practical" country hot licks, as that was what I was playing more of back then and mistakenly didn't see a need to persue a study of jazz, which seemed complicated to me then.
   Now years later I have developed more of an interest in jazz and have tried a few differnt book/cd courses, without a great deal of results. I remembered that course and how the other prolick courses had helped me, so I decided to look for the jazz course on the internet only to find that it didn't exist in that format, but rather in a more affordable book and cd.
   I had remembered the old courses were a great deal of talk and explaination, and a little booklet with notes and tabs. Now the cd contains the solos played through once, then just the rhythm track so you can practice along with it, with a lot of explaination written in the book. It has tab and notation(what guitar player reads notes when they have tabs?) It seems to have a lot of info on different techniques used in jazz. I've not gotten all the way through it yet, but I'm enjoying what I've done so far.
   If you're a guitar player that's played other types of music over the years and are looking to get into jazz, or just looking to grab a few licks and concepts that will enhance your own style of playing, I think you'll like this one.



2. I bought this book last week, influenced by a friend who owns it.
   
   Actually the book is very self explained, with step-by-step tips of the tecnique involved in the licks of each song, wich has its own versions without the guitars, in order to improve the skills obtained by the student throughout practicing.



3. Here's what you get in this book: Six substantial solos, recorded and written out (tab and music notation...), each with specific and easy to understand discussion, phrase by phrase, of how the notes were chosen. The solos and chord progressions are great...right in the bop/post bop zone, and, the phrase by phrase disection provides an immediately applicable resource. The analysis of the solos gets you playing those elusive jazz sounds right away, and lots of sensible narrative means you will understand the theory. For me, this is the one book I wish I had thirty years ago. Great value.



4. I've been playing guitar for 24 years and I found this book to be extremely informative and helpful. The book is very detailed in the deconstruction of the solos, which is the greatest way to learn to take a solo, learn it, then make it your own by adding your own ideas! The information in this book is enough to keep you practicing for a VERY long time. There's so much on substitutions and on using different scales over changes that seem intimidating, but, with this book, you'll never be confused again! I highly recommend this book. This book is worth ten times the price.
   
   Like one of the other reviewers, I had purchased this instructional tape series but only two parts: Arpeggio Substitutions and Tension & Resolution. To say that I purchased those tapes about 15 years ago and I STILL USE THE SUBSTITUTIONS THAT I LEARNED IN THIS BOOK TODAY. Listen, just get this book... You won't regret it...
   
   PS- There's a typo in the book description. The book is actually 72 pages long...

5 comments about Joe Pass: Virtuoso Standards, Songbook Collection Authentic Guitar-Tab Edition (Virtuoso Series).

1. This book let me feel how Joe is excellent guiter virtuoso. Try to play his tune allows me to taste his music deeply.



2. I had heard Joe Pass.
   This book give me the opportunity to approach modestly his art.
   And better feel the beauty.
   Thank you Joe, thank you Roland.



3. This book is a great resource for those who want to study the solo guitar style of Joe Pass. Since Joe used alot of different textures and approaches in his solo work, a musician can find many different approaches to how to build lines, create interesting harmonies and keep the interest of the listener in every song transcribed.



4. I've been playing guitar for almost 20 years now and jazz has always been a mystery to me. I always wanted to play jazz standards but never had the patience to learn them. After trying many boring and unnecessarily difficult books, I bought Dan Towey's Chord Melodies on Hal Leonard and that got me started. I was hooked. I was then looking for a more challening book, one that I could impress my audience with. When I found these note-for-note transcriptions of Joe Pass' Virtuoso recordings, I thought I'd give it a try but wasn't too serious about it. I figured this would be way out of my league.
   
   Well, I've had this book for a week now and can't let my guitar down. I have learned the beautiful "Have You Met Miss Jones" standard by practicing over four hours a day. Unlike some books on chord melodies, Joe Pass does not use super complicated chords but rather a beautiful melody line along with swinging rhythms. For a non-jazz guitarist like me, it turned out to be a really good fit. This book is definitely for advanced guitarists but it certainly isn't out of reach for those of us who are prepared to practice hard.
   
   The transcriptions are very accurate and the fingerings are top notch. Roland Leone did a fantastic job both in terms of accuracy and practicality. Highly recommended.



5. I love this book. It gives a lot of insight into the genius of Joe Pass. I use it mostly to verify what I have transcribed by ear.