Welcome to the third installment of The Jazz Guitar Chronicles.

The Complete Pacific Jazz Joe Pass Quartet Sessions box set from Mosaic.

As I mentioned in my earlier The Jazz Guitar Chronicles posts ("Joe Pass In Hamburg" album (HERE), "Two For the Road" album HERE), The Jazz Guitar Chronicles came about as a tribute to my friend and superb jazz guitarist David Gitlen. 

Joe Pass in Hamburg. ACT Jazz Classics.

David has an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz guitar and jazz guitarists, and has played and/or studied with some of the greats, guys like Joe Pass and Jim Hall, to drop just two names. 

David has so much "insider jazz guitarist" knowledge to share, and I just love to hear David's stories about everything jazz guitar and jazz guitarist. 

David stops by Jeff's Place to teach me a jazz guitar lesson once a week - a "silver lining" result of the coronavirus pandemic when the music stores shut down - and we've established a fun tradition of listening to a jazz guitar album or two after each lesson.

After the lesson, David tells me about the techniques being used by the guitarists on a particular album, and demonstrates the techniques for me in real time to the music on one of my - or David's - guitars.

Herb Ellis and Joe Pass' "Two For The Road".

As you might suspect, David has a lot of jazz guitar albums in his music library, and he's been sharing some of his favorites with me.

These albums are not always easy to find, and sometimes they're expensive because of their rarity. These are the sorts of albums that jazz guitarists buy for their own music libraries, so there is an "insider" aspect to them, as well. If you are patient and keep looking you can usually find the albums on Discogs or Amazon.

While the sound quality is quite good on most of these albums, the emphasis of the recommendations are about the important performances on these albums, rather than their sound quality. 

Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD Player

While a number of the albums are LPs, or can be bought as either LPs or CDs, a fair amount of the recorded jazz guitar album canon is available only on CD these days.

These albums, along with 78 transfers of classical music, have brought to my attention the huge importance of having a CD player that is good at playing music in a natural or "real sound" fashion, like the Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD player I have been listening to CDs with, which I have just fallen in love with. 

Also, if you are trying to figure out a song on the guitar, a CD player is a huge help because its easy to replay a track over and over until you get it figured out. Lots easier than doing it on LPs!

Quite literally, having the Audio Note (UK) CD 2.1x/II Level Two Red Book CD player here to listen to CDs with has changed my life in a very positive way as I explore new music that I otherwise would never get to listen to. 

The Complete Pacific Jazz Joe Pass Quartet Sessions box set from Mosaic.

Joe Pass is certainly one of the greatest jazz guitarists to walk Planet Earth, and along with Jim Hall and Ed Bickert, they make up a trinity among my favorite jazz guitarists from the "Golden Age of Jazz Guitar". 

The Complete Pacific Jazz Joe Pass Quartet Sessions box set from Mosaic.

There's five CDs in this box set from Mosaic, one CD in the first jewel case, and two CDs each in the other two jewel cases.

The Complete Pacific Jazz Joe Pass Quartet Sessions box set from Mosaic was a limited edition release of just 5000 box sets (mine is #2178).

The Complete Pacific Jazz Joe Pass Quartet Sessions liner notes.

This box set covers the period of Joe's recordings from 1963 to 1964, features 90 performances, 32 of which were previously unissued, and was released in 2001.  

The liner notes by Kirk Silsbee are great, share a lot of meaningful information about Joe Pass and the others who contributed to the recordings, as well as a nice selection of photos from the sessions.

For more information on this box set, check out the article for All About Jazz by C. Andrew Hovan (HERE),  and the CD track listing at Wikipedia (HERE).

Well, I hope you can find a copy of The Complete Pacific Jazz Joe Pass Quartet Sessions of your very own, as this box set documents some of the greatest jazz guitar performances by Joe Pass, and is an important part of the recorded jazz guitar music canon.

Sadowsky 'Jim Hall tribute' archtop jazz guitar.

Ok, that's all for now, as I need to get busy practicing for my next lesson with David!

As always, thanks for stopping by, and may the tone be with you!