Joe Pass - Virtuoso (1973)(Remastered, 2025)

Artist: Joe Pass
Title Of Album: Virtuoso
Year Of Release: 1973/2025
Label (Catalog#) : Craft
Country:: USA
Genre: Jazz
Quality: FLAC (*tracks)
Bitrate: 24bit / 192kHz
Time: 43:45
Full Size: 1.47Gb(+3%)
Info:wiki

Info

It's remarkable that it took 12 years of Joe Pass recording albums as a group leader for someone to finally have the idea to cut a record with just him and his guitar. But leave it to Norman Granz—who featured Pass as one of the first artists signed to his Pablo label, alongside Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, and Duke Ellington—to know that a solo album was the best way to demonstrate Pass's considerable talents. To be sure, up to the point when Virtuoso was released in 1973, his albums as a leader had been impressive, but Pass's unique guitar style—rapid runs, played cleanly and clearly, with complex chordal melodies that come off effortlessly fresh—is best experienced with no distractions. And while the tracks here are technically stunning, they are also emotionally resonant; it's almost a cliche, but his soulful playing makes his electric guitar sound like an entire band. Although the song list feels like Chapter One of Jazz Standards for Beginners, his journey through hoary standbys like "How High the Moon," "Night and Day," and "Stella by Starlight" is invigorated and reimagined. The sole Pass original—"Blues for Alican"—blends in seamlessly, as his take on all this material is absolutely unique, and highly personalized to his own style. Technical proficiency should be unsurprising on an LP entitled—without irony—Virtuoso, but the album's true strengths come from the way Pass fuses his clear mastery of his instrument with a natural musicality. The expressiveness of the wild runs on "Cherokee" gives the song a bristling electricity that not just evokes, but nearly rivals, the intensity of the way Charlie Parker originally reimagined it. Likewise, his version of Thelonious Monk's "'Round Midnight" captures the unpredictable adventurousness of the original while sounding utterly unlike any version that came before. This is an iconic album that set a new standard for solo jazz guitar, and this new remaster gives it a presentation that emphasizes its warmth, clarity, and, well, virtuosity. by Jason Ferguson

Tracks:
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01. Night And Day (00:03:31)
02. Stella By Starlight (00:05:10)
03. Here's That Rainy Day (00:03:36)
04. My Old Flame (00:05:17)
05. How High The Moon (00:05:00)
06. Cherokee (00:03:36)
07. Sweet Lorraine (00:04:09)
08. Have You Met Miss Jones (00:04:43)
09. Round Midnight (00:03:37)
10. All The Things You Are (00:04:00)
11. Blues For Alican (00:05:29)
12. The Song Is You (00:04:33)

Dynamic Range Meter