Introduction to Jazz Guitar Music: A Jazz Guitar Primer

by Dr. Matthew Warnock.

Friday night. You worked all day and look forward to hitting the pillow, but a good night’s sleep will have to wait. As you walk into the club, the smell of stale cigarette smoke and cheap bourbon acts as a smelling salt and you feel a second wind coming on. The “stage” is a small clearing in the back corner next to the restrooms and pay phone. The drummer and bass player have set up and sit at the bar talking and joking around while enjoying some of the club's “finest” refreshments.

You drop your amp in the corner and shake off the snow that gathered on the grill during the walk from your apartment. Making sure that the amp is positioned in a way that it acts as both a speaker for the audience and a monitor for the trio, you carefully take out your guitar. Your “other wife” is a beautiful Gibson L-5 found in a pawn shop several years back, one of the happiest days of your life. After a quick tune up and a brief check of your tone on the amp, you motion for the rest of the band to join you. It’s time to go to work.

Take a brief look around the room and as with most nights the audience is made up of a wide variety of people: college students who are here because jazz is the hip thing to see at the moment; middle-aged couples who stumbled upon the club after a night out for dinner; regulars who have come out for years now to hear you play; and, more than a few people who aren’t sure if they belong in a “jazz club.” You look over at the band, “'Au Privave in F,'” you say, and begin to count off the tune. The familiar feeling of excitement comes over you as you head into the unknown. Not one person in the room knows what you are going to play tonight, not even yourself. It is a reminder that this is why you play, the sense that you are creating music on the spot and taking chances that may or may not work out as intended. A smile forms as you launch into the first tune of the night.

The life of a jazz guitarist has never been easy. While some players have been able to survive off of their playing and recordings alone, most have had to work at least one day job to make ends meet. Famous players such as Wes Montgomery and Johnny Smith, along with many others, had to teach and work day jobs to help support their musical careers. Nevertheless, guitarists have been some of the most influential performers in jazz history. The fact that many of these players could work during the day then perform at a world class level every night makes their accomplishments even more awe inspiring. Their recordings have brought joy to many listeners over the past 100 years and have inspired thousands of young guitarists to learn his or her first major7 chord and seven-note scale.

This jazz guitar music primer explores eight (George Van Eps, Charlie Christian, Johnny Smith, Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Pat Martino, John McLaughlin and Pat Metheny) of the most influential jazz guitarists of the past 100 years and guides the reader to materials for further study and listening.

The Players

George Van Eps (1913-1998)

Over a performing and teaching career that spanned more than six decades, George Van Eps completely changed the way guitarists of all genres viewed the instrument and its role in modern music. One of Eps’ biggest contributions to the world of jazz guitar was his use of the seven-string archtop guitar, as opposed to the more conventional six-string model being used at the time. Though the seven-string classical guitar had been around for some time, especially in Russia where it had been popular since the 1700s, Van Eps is credited with bringing the instrument into the arena of popular music, and more specifically the jazz idiom. His seven-string guitar, built by Epiphone in 1938, had an added low A string that allowed Van Eps an expanded range and more tonal colors than his six-string-playing peers. While the seven-string guitar was not adopted by any of Van Eps’ contemporaries, it was later used by such famous guitarists as Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, Lenny Breau (who used a high A string in place of the low A), Steve Vai and Korn guitarists Monkey and Head.

Having been one of the most recorded guitarists of the 20th century, Van Eps' unique approach to the guitar was to have a lasting influence on generations of young jazz guitarists. Van Eps’ use of the seven-string guitar not only expanded his tonal palette, it also allowed him to develop techniques that were not possible on a six-string. Early in his career, Van Eps developed a method of playing bass lines, melody and chords all at the same time, a feat that had not been previously accomplished and that, with the exception of a few players, such as Lenny Breau, Ted Greene and Charlie Hunter, has not been accomplished since. His virtuosic playing and landmark solo albums, including the legendary Mellow Guitar recording, had a lasting influence on a wide range of guitarists including Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Johnny Smith, Ben Monder, and many others.

Aside from developing the seven-string guitar and greatly expanding the harmonic possibilities of the instrument, Van Eps also played an integral part in the early development of jazz guitar education. In addition to his long list of recordings, as both a leader and sideman, Van Eps wrote a series of three ground breaking method books called Mechanisms of Guitar Volumes 1, 2 and 3. In these books, Van Eps laid out his polyphonic approach to the guitar in an easy to understand, though highly detailed, manner. The books are still considered to be some of the most comprehensive works written on the subject of jazz guitar and have had a major influence on many jazz guitar educators such as Johnny Smith, Howard Roberts and Jimmy Wyble.

While most of the leading jazz musicians of the 1940s and '50s lived in New York, Van Eps lived in Los Angeles his entire life. As a result of his geographical displacement, Van Eps never adopted the fiery single-line approach to improvisation in his playing that was made popular by New York bebop players such as Charlie Christian. At a time when many swing era musicians were being swept aside by the new generation of beboppers, Van Eps stuck to his roots and was able to carve out a niche by playing laid back, enjoyable music that was more digestible by the general public than the fast and furious bebop coming from the East Coast. Though he is never directly credited with the rise of the “cool” jazz movement of the 1940s, the harmonically sophisticated and musically expressive manner in which he played can be seen as a direct precursor to the cool jazz school of playing that was made famous by Miles Davis’ recording The Birth Of The Cool, and further developed by Stan Getz, Chet Baker and others.

Essential Listening
Mellow Guitar
My Guitar
Seven and Seven (With Howard Alden)
Legends: Solo Guitar Performances (With Johnny Smith)

Essential Publications
Mel Bay George Van Eps Guitar Solos (Book/CD)
George Van Eps Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar Volumes 1, 2, 3

Charlie Christian (1916-1942)

If George Van Eps was the laid back father figure of early jazz guitar, then Charlie Christian was its rebellious teenage son. Christian lived a hard life, from his musical beginnings in Oklahoma where he was forced to become a professional musician when his father was stricken blind and the three children had to support the family, right through to his death at the age of 25 from tuberculosis in a New York sanitarium. In the short time between these two tragic events, Christian was able to act as the catalyst that would bring the guitar into the electric age and be a major factor in the creation of the bebop movement.

Before Christian, most guitarists, including Van Eps, played big-body acoustic or archtop guitars that did not have built-in pickups. In most cases, such as Freddie Green of the Count Basie band, the guitar was unamplified and acted in more of a percussive role than as a melodic or harmonic instrument. Though there were some guitarists, usually in solo or small group settings, who would set a microphone in front of the sound hole to allow them to be heard over the louder instruments, most guitarists remained in the unamplified camp well into the 1940s and in some cases the 1950s. Christian was lucky enough to have come on the jazz scene at a time when people were beginning to experiment with early amplifiers and pickups for the jazz guitar. Because he was able to get hold of a guitar with built-in pickups and an amp at an early age, Christian was able to develop a style of playing that incorporated single-line solos that could be heard over the drums, bass and piano. This new technology allowed him to compete on a linear level with the clarinetists, saxophonists and trumpeters of the day, something that would immediately cause him to stand out among his peers.

The electric guitar could not have found a better spokesman than Charlie Christian as he immediately made an impression on musicians and fans alike when he began to play with Benny Goodman in 1939. Their first meeting is now the stuff of legends and has gone down in history as one of the greatest jazz guitar performances of all time. After meeting Christian at an afternoon rehearsal, Goodman decided he liked the young guitarists but that he would not be a good fit for his band at that time. Not to be deterred, Christian went to the Victor Hugo Restaurant (Los Angeles) that evening where the Goodman band was performing and waited quietly backstage. After the band had finished several songs Goodman turned to the audience to announce the next tune. By the time Goodman had finished talking to the audience, Christian had snuck on stage and was ready to play. Although Goodman was visibly angry at the young guitarist, he allowed him to stay onstage for the song, though he decided to pick a song, "Rose Room," which he did not expect Christian to know.

However, instead of playing a short solo and bowing out like Goodman expected, Christian took chorus after chorus, 20 in all, of improvised solos, with each chorus being better than the last. By the end of the tune, which is reported to have lasted forty minutes, Christian was a full-fledged member of the Goodman ensemble, a feat that was not only significant on a musical level, but on a political level as well. This incarnation of the Goodman band was to be the first commercially successful group consisting of both white and black musicians (others who had previously joined Goodman included Lionel Hampton, vibraphone, Teddy Wilson, piano, and Fletcher Henderson, arranger), or a “mixed” band as it became known. This was unheard of at the time and considered scandalous among some concert goers, especially in the South.

While Christian was making a name for himself playing swing-style music with the Goodman band during the day and early evening, he began making waves in the late-night clubs in Harlem as a major figure in the development of the bebop movement. Whereas swing music was laid back and easily digested by the average listener, bebop was music played by the highest level jazz musicians of the time, players who enjoyed the challenge of navigating through complex chord changes at lightening tempos, and was aimed at fellow musicians rather than the general public. The beboppers, such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk, were never as popular as the Benny Goodmans and Duke Ellingtons of the day, but they were legendary among fellow musicians for being the cream of the crop when it came to speaking the new language of modern jazz. Christian fit right in with this type of player and his fiery single-note lines and long solos, in which he never repeated himself, instantly garnered him the respect and admiration of the bebop pioneers.

While his work with Goodman would have an influence on many younger players, his late night jams at clubs like Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem would have a lasting influence on future generations of guitarists such as Oscar Moore, Jim Hall, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Johnny Smith and Wes Montgomery, to name a few. Guitarists were so infatuated with his playing that they would often sit in the front row at a bebop club and frantically try to write down their favorite Christian lines and melodies, something that a young Miles Davis had been known to do with Charlie Parker’s lines as well.

Maintaining a hectic schedule of performances with the Goodman band, coupled with all night jam sessions and his recreational alcohol and drug use, took a toll on the young guitarist. Having contracted tuberculosis in the late 1930s, Christian’s health declined in the coming years until he was admitted to a New York sanitarium at the age of 25 to rest and regain his health. Though Christian passed away soon thereafter, his contributions to the world of jazz guitar were never to be forgotten. During his lifetime he won many critic and reader polls as the top jazz guitarist of the day, and in 1966 he was inducted into Downbeat magazine's hall of fame. In 1990, he was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, cited as an early influence on the first generation of rock guitarists and a pioneer of the electric guitar.

Essential Listening
Original Guitar Hero
Benny Goodman Sextet Featuring Charlie Christian
The Genius of the Electric Guitar
Solo Flight

Essential Publications
The Best of Charlie Christian: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Styles and Techniques of the Father of Modern Jazz Guitar
Mel Bay Swing to Bop: The Music of Charlie Christian
The Guitar Chord Shapes of Charlie Christian

Johnny Smith (1922- )

Johnny Smith is often considered to be the first all around jazz guitar virtuoso. Whereas George Van Eps pushed the boundaries of chords and harmony on the guitar, and Charlie Christian revolutionized single-note soloing, Smith was able to master both of these approaches as well as becoming one of the most in-demand composers and arrangers of the 1940s and '50s. Having begun his musical studies on the banjo, the same instrument Van Eps learned to play on, Smith quickly moved to the guitar at the age of 11 and by 16 he supported his family through giving guitar lessons and playing in local dance bands. Though he never pursued a formal music education, Smith managed to master the cornet, guitar and banjo prior to the age of 20 and before spending his 20s and 30s as the head arranger/composer for the NBC studio orchestra in New York City. While at NBC, Smith wrote and arranged over 30 television and radio shows per week for a variety of ensembles ranging from duos to full symphony orchestras. Smith was also a regular on the New York City jazz scene, maintaining a busy performing schedule as a jazz artist in many of the city's famous clubs.

One of the reasons that Smith became so successful at such an early age was his ability to read music at a very high level. As Smith tells it, there was a time during the 1940s and '50s in New York City when if a band needed a guitar player who could read music they called Smith, if Smith was busy they called Mundel Lowe, and if Lowe was booked they did the gig without a guitarist. Smith’s ability to read opened many doors throughout his career and allowed him to play with some of the most prestigious ensembles in the world, including the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Symphony and the NBC studio orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini.

Far from being solely a reading musician, Smith became a first-call jazz guitarist as well. His ability to improvise single-note solos on any tune at any tempo, coupled with his vast chord vocabulary and ability to improvise chord melodies and chord solos, made Smith very popular among the leading jazz musicians of the day. During the 1940s and '50s, Smith performed over 20 weeks per year at the Birdland jazz club where he shared the stage with many of the era's greatest musicians including Stan Getz, Lionel Hampton and many others.

Though many jazz musicians of the post-war period saw their audiences dwindle and their record sales drop, Smith was able to maintain a high level of success in these areas throughout his career. While most readers may remember the hit song "Walk Don’t Run" performed by the surf band, the Ventures, or even by Chet Atkins who released an earlier recording, the song was originally written and recorded by Smith. The success of "Walk Don’t Run," as well as "Moonlight in Vermont," which remains one of the best selling instrumental singles of all time, garnered Smith a level of attention with the general music-buying public that few other jazz guitarists have been able to achieve. As well, Smith was a very close friend of saxophonist Stan Getz and because of this close relationship Smith developed a love for the music of Brazil, especially the bossa nova rhythm that became very popular in the 1950s. Smith’s incorporation of the bossa nova rhythm into his music provided another avenue for his music to reach mainstream audiences.

While other jazz guitarists who reach this level of success in the popular music world have been chastised for their fortune, Smith has remained one of the most well respected and influential jazz guitarists of the past 100 years. As his music was being enjoyed by millions of people throughout the world, Smith’s technical virtuosity on the guitar became legendary. Smith’s right and left-hand technique were impeccable, a feat rarely accomplished by guitarists of any genre. His approach to picking was so unique and so influential that it has become known simply as "Johnny Smith picking." One of Smith’s early musical influences was classical guitarist Andrés Segovia. Though Smith would never play with his right-hand fingers as did Segovia did, he decided that he would be able to use a pick with the fluidity and technical virtuosity that classical players achieved with their fingers. Smith proved to the world that he had accomplished this goal when he released an album of difficult classical pieces using a pick. The album had originally been recorded on a dare by a friend of Smith’s who didn’t believe he could convincingly interpret these pieces without using his right-hand fingers. Rising to the challenge, Smith recorded the pieces in his living room and sent it to his friend to prove his point. Smith’s friend was so impressed with these recordings that he sent them to the head of Concord records who immediately contacted Smith about releasing them as an album. This recording, later issued as Legends Of Jazz Guitar, remains one of the most highly regarded and studied jazz guitar albums of all time.

Though Smith retired from a full-time performing career in 1958, his music has remained a high point in the world of jazz guitar. Smith continued to perform in the Colorado area for many years after leaving NYC, and became a highly sought-after educator throughout the 1960s, '70s and '80s. Some of his students, including a young Bill Frissel and Gene Bertoncini, went on to become world class guitarists themselves. Smith is also credited as being one of the first, if not the first, person to write for and perform with a jazz guitar ensemble. Calling it his “all star band,” Smith put together a group of five up-and-coming guitarists and wrote arrangements and original compositions for the group. Though this ensemble was unique and somewhat unorthodox at the time, the jazz guitar ensemble format has now found its way into many university and college music programs and several famous players, including Kenny Burrell, have lead professional groups of this nature.

While Smith may have chosen to spend his later years living quietly in Colorado, his recordings are still cited by the world’s best guitarists as being highly influential in their careers. Guitarists such as Joe Pass, Lenny Breau, Pat Metheny, Mike Stern and others have acknowledged Smith as one of their early influences.

Essential Listening
The Complete Roost Johnny Smith Small Group Sessions (Box Set on Mosaic)
Moonlight in Vermont
Walk Don’t Run
The Sound of the Johnny Smith Guitar

Essential Publications
Mel Bay: The Complete Johnny Smith Approach to Guitar
Johnny Smith Guitar Solos

Wes Montgomery (1925-1968)

When most people hear the words “jazz guitar” an image of the legendary Wes Montgomery pops into their heads. Though there were many great players before Wes, and many since, “The Thumb,” as he became known, has managed to remain the quintessential jazz guitarist in the public psyche. Wes never learned to read music, learning tunes and improvisation completely by ear, but he possessed a level of musicianship that most conservatory-educated musicians would envy. His early training came from playing Charlie Christian solos that he learned from Christian’s recordings. Wes was so infatuated with Christian's playing that before he could improvise on his own, Wes would perform Christian’s solos note-for-note on stage in place of his own improvisations. Though early on in his career Wes was shy about improvising, Wes’ recordings are now considered essential listening for any up-and-coming jazz guitarist and many of the world's best players, including Pat Martino, George Benson, Pat Metheny and others, have cited him as their foremost influence.

One of the things that made Wes stand out from his peers was his use of the right-hand thumb instead of a pick. While this technique had been employed by blues and country players for years, it was new to the world of jazz guitar when Wes started using it on his early recordings. Wes began playing with a pick but after he was married and began having children (he was to have eight in total) he found it harder and harder to find time to practice. Since he was working at a factory during the day and playing in jazz clubs at night, the only time to practice was when his family was sleeping. Wes found that when he practiced with a pick it was too loud and would wake his wife and kids, so he tried using his thumb in hopes that it would allow him to practice at a softer volume. After practicing with his thumb for sometime, he found that he liked the soft, warm tone it produced and decided to perform this way permanently.

Wes is not only credited with revolutionizing the way jazz guitarists view their right hands, his use of octaves changed the way players looked at their left hand as well. Early on in his career Wes performed regularly at several jazz clubs in Indianapolis in groups that would have a pianist alongside the guitar. One of the techniques that Wes picked up from the pianists he gigged with was their use of octave doubling; which was used to beef up their single-note lines. As was the case with his right-hand thumb, Wes was not the first guitarist to use octaves in his solos, Johnny Smith and others had experimented with octaves early on as well, but the level at which Wes was able to use octaves in his improvisations was unsurpassed. While Wes was known to use octaves to play an entire solo, or even a whole tune, he most often used them as the second tier in his three-tiered approach to soloing. Wes’ multi-tiered approach started with several choruses of single-line soloing followed by octaves and then finishing off with a section of chord soloing. This approach allowed Wes to build intensity simply by increasing the amount of notes he was improvising with, starting with one note and ending with four or five-note chords.

One of the little known facts about Wes’ innovations was his role in the development of the electric bass guitar. Wes’ brother, Monk Montgomery, was the first bassist to tour using an electric bass when he played in Lionel Hampton’s band following World War II, a band that Wes toured with as well. Though Wes did not play the upright bass, he was drawn to the sound of the bass guitar and began experimenting with it as a lead instrument. One of the best examples of Wes’ use of the bass guitar can found on his 1960 album Movin’ Along. On this recording, Wes treats the electric bass as a lead instrument, similar to how he played guitar on his trio recordings, by playing melodies and single-note solos on the instrument. Though Wes rarely experimented with the electric bass after this recording, his use of the bass guitar as the featured instrument in a jazz ensemble was to prove highly inspirational to the next generation of bass players.

While Wes’ later albums tended to be more pop music than jazz, especially the albums that featured string sections and songs taken from the pop charts of the day, Wes will always be remembered for his contributions to the world of hard-bop jazz guitar. Though some critics have chided Wes for the direction he took in his later recordings, these records, though “smoother” than his earlier works, were quintessential in helping jazz guitar reach a wider, more mainstream audience. While some of his die-hard fans may have shied away from his later albums, many new listeners were exposed to his early works by way of Wes’ commercial albums. As a result, many previously non-jazz listeners became indoctrinated into the world of jazz guitar through Wes’ late period recordings.

Essential Listening
Boss Guitar
Movin’ Along
Incredible Jazz Guitar
Full House

Essential Publications
Mel Bay Essential Jazz Lines: The Style of Wes Montgomery for Guitar (Book/CD)
Best of Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery the Early Years

Joe Pass (1929-1994)

Joseph Passalaqua, better known as Joe Pass, is one of the most recognizable figures in the world of jazz guitar. Even today, 15 years after his death in 1994, he is one of the most listened to and studied guitarists of any generation. His ability to meld blistering single-note lines, beautifully crafted chord solos and remarkable solo guitar arrangements has inspired countless guitarists to explore the realm of jazz guitar, especially that of solo jazz guitar. Pass’ ability to perform in any situation, from solo to full orchestra, made him one of the most in-demand guitarists of the 20th century. Though he could not read music, as the stories go, his vast repertoire of tunes and his ability to perform them in any key made him a valued sideman for many singers, including Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn, Joe Williams and Ella Fitzgerald, who would normally have hired a pianist in place of a guitar. By performing with such big-name singers and many other instrumentalists, Pass helped shine a new light on the possibilities of the guitar as both a single-line and solo instrument.

Joe Pass was one of the most well rounded guitarists in the history of jazz guitar. Though he later became known for his solo and duo recordings and concerts, Pass spent his early career developing a highly sophisticated approach to single-note improvisation. Having a strong foundation in blues and swing (one of his early idols being Charlie Christian), Pass developed a way of seeing the guitar neck that was built around chord shapes and arpeggios instead of the scale shapes that are often taught today. His approach centered on the idea that for every chord shape he knew there was a corresponding arpeggio and scale shape that went along with it. This approach has been laid out in several of Pass’ instructional books and DVDs as well as books written by other jazz guitar pedagogues.

By adding chromatic notes and chord substitutions to this approach Pass, was able to develop a personalized sound while still playing inside the chord changes and within the bebop arena. Alongside his deep knowledge of chord-scale relationships, Pass also had a vast vocabulary of bebop lines and phrases. While some listeners may find that Pass uses a lot of clichéd lines and phrases in his playing, it is important to remember that before Pass came along these ideas were not clichés. It was only after, when other players came along and began using Pass’ ideas in their own soloing, did these licks and patterns take on the label of cliché.

Apart from being a first tier single-line improviser, Pass was also able to create chord solos that very few players could perform at the time. His chord solos were highly melodic, giving the listener the sense that he was harmonizing a single-note melody instead of simply playing a series of chord grips and patterns. Though Pass had a large number of chord voicing under his fingers, he preferred to use drop-3, drop-2 and closed-position chords for his solos. By mixing these three chord types with two-note, double-stop ideas, and three-note triad ideas, Pass was able to create long chord-based improvisations where he rarely, if ever, repeated himself.

While other guitarists, such as Wes Montgomery and Johnny Smith, had experimented with chord soloing before him, Pass took this technique to new heights. A great example of Pass’ chord soling is found in his book Joe Pass Chord Solos, which is a collection of Pass’ chord solos over a number of standard jazz tunes. As the story goes, the book's author went to Pass’ house one afternoon, turned on a tape recorder, and asked Pass to improvise chord solos over the tunes. It is a testament to Pass’ ability that he improvised these masterful chord solos on the spot, as they have now become some of the most studied jazz guitar etudes ever written.

Though Pass was a highly accomplished ensemble performer he is probably best known for his series of solo recordings, especially the Virtuoso series he did for the Pablo record label. While other guitarists had recorded solo versions of tunes, and some even entire solo records, none was able to match the level of success and influence that Pass achieved with his solo playing. What made Pass stand out among his peers was his ability to expand the range of possibilities that were available to the solo jazz guitarist. Pass was able to mix single lines and bass lines (with and without chords underneath them), chord solos and double-stop phrases to produce arrangements that were both breathtaking on a technical level and highly musical. What made these recordings even more impressive was the fact that Pass had abandoned using a pick and was performing entirely with his right-hand fingers. Though at first, Pass’ single-note runs were not as impressive with his fingers as they were with a pick, he quickly developed his right hand to the point where one could not tell the difference between his fingers and a pick. Pass continued to perform solo concerts throughout his career and continued to develop his solo playing up until his death in 1994, leaving a legacy of solo recordings, both audio and video, that may never be surpassed.

While Joe Pass is known outside the jazz guitar community for his recording and performing career, within that community he is also one of the most highly respected educators of the past 50 years. Pass wrote many books and recorded several instructional videos that are still commonly used by jazz guitar students and teachers today. Apart from his books and videos, Pass was also an active clinician and teacher. He spent much of his down time giving clinics and teaching classes at the Guitar Institute in Los Angeles and travelling to colleges and universities around the world to work with up-and-coming players. Though most of today’s performing jazz guitarists teach to one extent or another, it was rare in Pass’ time for a jazz guitarist to teach as well as perform. Pass’ dedication to the younger generation of guitarists was to have a huge influence on many players, professionals and amateurs alike.

Essential Listening
Virtuoso Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4
Joy Spring
Chops
Speak Love

Essential Publications
Joe Pass: Virtuoso Standards Songbook Collection
Joe Pass Guitar Chords
Joe Pass Chord Solos
Joe Pass Guitar Style

[Article continued on page two: Jazz Guitar Primer, Page Two]

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