JOE PASS: PRESENT AT FUTURE

What do you give a guitar player who has everything?

Perhaps that question should be amended, in the case of Joe Pass, to conclude “everything he needs.” The California-based virtuoso has economic security, worldwide respect, a happy family life and a career schedule that now enables him to spend about half of each year at home.

One thing Pass doesn’t think he needs, he confided the other day, is more guitars.

Told about a recent album in which the guitarist-leader used no less than eight different instruments, almost all electronic, he reacted in a manner compatible with the values of an artist who can offer an entire evening-long recital on a single modestly amplified electric guitar.

“It’s hard to believe all that equipment is necessary, but it depends what you want. Back in the 1960s I tried out a guitar-organ; that was before synthesizers came into prominence. On one occasion at a place in New York that has all these electronic instruments, I made a little recording for them to test out a guitar synthesizer. Another time (guitarist) Pat Martino had some stuff hooked up in this store; they pulled some switches, and I sounded like an organ. I was really gassed, because I found myself sounding like Jimmy Smith.

“Then I asked myself, ‘Why do I want to sound like an organ, or a flute, or a trumpet, if I play a guitar?’ ”

Pass admits that he has a problem: “It all has to be programmed, and I don’t know much about the technicalities. If someone else plugged it in and did all that work and just let me play, maybe I’d try out some of those instruments.”

One of the most engaging aspects of Pass’ improvisations is that he approaches as closely as possible the acoustic sound that was, obviously, the basic nature of the instrument. He acknowledges that if it were not for the problems of being heard in a large hall, he might simply play acoustic. “The moment you switch to electric, the same chord will be changed; little nuances are altered as the notes ring out louder.”

Since the only consequential innovation in jazz guitar in recent years has been the development of a note-tapping technique, popularized by Stanley Jordan, inevitably Jordan’s name arose during the conversation. Pass reacted with obviously qualified approval.

“I’ve heard him on records, and I was on the bill opposite him once. It was OK. It’s an interesting idea and he does it well, but there are problems. For one thing, it tends to be a high sound, because he’s mostly playing in the upper levels. In some ways it almost sounds like a keyboard. You really can’t dig in, and I don’t think you can swing hard on it.

“I’m going to look into the ‘stick,’ the instrument Emmett Chapman invented, on which he uses that same note-tapping idea. Oscar Peterson has one; as a pianist, using both hands to produce notes and chords, he can use the same principle.”

That Pass has not acquired an arsenal of instruments is not due to any shortage of time in which to master them. His schedule enables him to spend a lot of time at home in Northridge with his wife, 14-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son. (“Joey played rock guitar for a while. He wasn’t bad, but he got tired of lugging all that equipment around and gave it up. I’m not sorry that he isn’t going to be a musician.”)

Though he is occasionally reunited with Oscar Peterson (their partnership began in 1973), Pass devotes most of his working weeks to solo recitals. A master of finger style (he uses the pick only for a rare flag-waver), Pass alone on stage is a riveting performer, weaving fascinating harmonic patterns on familiar songs and blues, supplying his own subliminal rhythm section. In effect, he is a one-man orchestra.

He likes to drop in at the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood, where, holding court, surrounded by a clutch of eager youths, he talks, solos, or duets with some of them.

“A tremendous number of guitarists are coming up. There are 750 full-time students at the Institute. On KKGO (the all-jazz station), you hear a guitar in every other track. Some are established guys like George Benson and Earl Klugh, but also new people who all sound alike. I don’t hear much originality.

“Sure, there are some talented people who have gained a measure of prominence: Ron Eschete, who studied with me years ago, and who’s teaching now at the Guitar Institute. There’s a kid that plays with Chick Corea who’s good--Scott Henderson--and he’s more in the fusion direction. It’s the kind of music where you don’t recognize the tune and you never will.”

Pass also speaks highly of a young protege, Frank Pontenza, and of Carlos Oliva, a Brazilian who studied with him at the Guitar Institute. In general, though, he is convinced that the number of potentially successful professionals is far outweighed by the hazards involved.

“All the kids they’ve been grinding out of the guitar schools, and out of places like Berklee in Boston--not hundreds but thousands of them--where do these guys go to work? There’s only about a dozen jobs out there.

“Sure, rock ‘n’ roll brought the guitar to prominence, and young people figured you could make a lot of bread playing it. Some people never got past the first four chords, and still made a career out of it. But the fact is, there are too many guitar players.

“I talk to the students. I don’t like to disillusion them, but I have to say, ‘Hey, it’s a tough business.’ As for jazz, well, you might say that jazz as we’ve known it is dying out, regardless of what instrument you’re talking about. There are few good people coming up like the Marsalis brothers, but overall I’m not that optimistic about the future.”

He sees no problems, though, in terms of his own future. Asked what he expects to be doing 10 years from now, Pass said: “I’ll still be working, still be developing ways of expanding my solo style. I hope to record some day with a full orchestra, which is something I’ve never done--maybe doing fine arrangements of tunes by Cole Porter and Jerome Kern.

“I hope I’ll eventually phase out nightclubs entirely--I still work them occasionally. In fact, not long ago I was opposite George Shearing at Blues Alley in Washington and one night I sat in with him. (Pass toured with the Shearing Quintet in 1965-66.) He’s still a kick to play with--it feels less intense than with Oscar.”

Pass is fortunate to have found himself frequently over the past 20 years in the company of giants. He recorded for Pablo with Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Milt Jackson, Dizzy Gillespie and, of course, countless times with Peterson. He has justified not only his presence among those pre-eminent peers, but also every award, from Down Beat polls to Grammy, in an illustrious career that has never been dependent on transitory fashions.