Joe Pass: For Django (Blue Note Tone Poet Series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Tone Poet Series reissue puts the Pacific Jazz classic on 180g vinyl with new liner notes. AllMusic's Scott Yanow wrote that it was long considered a classic.

This edition

• Blue Note Tone Poet series
• 180g vinyl
• Liner notes insert
• Stereo mix

About the album

Every jazz guitarist owes something to Django Reinhardt, and in 1964 Joe Pass paid his debt in full. He picked ten tunes Reinhardt wrote, played or inspired, and recorded them for Richard Bock's Pacific Jazz label (Bock produced the date) with a crack little band: John Pisano on second guitar, Jim Hughart on bass and Colin Bailey on drums.

Reinhardt's own "Nuages," "Fleur d'Ennui," "Cavalerie" and "Django's Castle" sit beside John Lewis's tribute "Django," Cole Porter's "Night and Day," Paul Misraki's "Insensiblement" and a quick-stepping "Limehouse Blues." Pass adds his own title tune. Pisano's rhythm guitar keeps a gentle Hot Club pulse underneath, while Pass plays long, clean, singing lines that owe as much to Charlie Christian as to Paris. Most tracks come in around three minutes, the longest barely past four and a half, and the whole thing has the relaxed feel of four friends playing tunes they love.

Yanow noted that Pass already had his own style and had no difficulty fitting into the music. It's a warm, unhurried record, the kind that makes a rainy afternoon feel like a choice.

Also at Kops: more Joe Pass on vinyl · browse Classic Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Pacific Jazz / Blue Note (cat# B0033158-01), a reissue of the 1964 album.