Joe Pass Quotes

"I'm a little tired. I haven't been out for more than five or six weeks in the States, and that's really a lot for me. You know, to me, music is important, it's the way I make my living and I like it and I enjoy playing. But it's not the most important thing in my life - that's my family." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Using drugs didn't help me to play, all it did was to hang me up for about fifteen years." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"It [drinking] all started when I split from home. I got the opportunity to go on the road and I went off with groups and trios. And I got introduced to drinking and all that. I was rebelling really and although I wasn't influenced by knowing that other jazz players were onto it, there was a point where there was a definite identifying with that, because it was part of the whole scene. It's just part of the environment and still is; but that doesn't mean that you have got to get caught up in it. But I thought that was the way to go, and I went from one thing to another and that's how I got started. I got heavily involved and people were saying, 'You'd better cool it, you'd better stop.' But I mean - I couldn't hear anything they said. Everybody, people close to me, my family; I didn't hear them; you never do." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Well I never copied [Django Reinhardt]. I don't remember that I copied any guitar player note-for-note. But I remember copying Charlie Parker note for note." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"My father would say, 'Play a scale,' and I'd play one and he'd say, 'What about the rest? There must be one above,' so we'd figure them out. I'd start the scale on the root of the chord and I'd go as far as my hand would reach without going out of position, say, five frets, and then I'd go all the way back. So when ! practised I'd start right away on scales. As well as the usual ones, I'd play whole tone scales, diminished, dominant sevenths, and chromatic scales. Every chord form, all the way up, and this took an hour." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

[My father] didn't know anything about music, he didn't play an instrument; but he wanted us to become something more than a steel-worker like himself." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"I grew up playing the guitar. I started when I was nine, and by the time I was nine and a half or ten, I was doing seven or eight hours' practice every day. I did two hours' practice at six o'clock in the morning before I went to school, and another two hours as soon as I got home from school in the afternoon. Then I did four hours at night before I went to bed. I did that until I was fourteen or fifteen." - Joe Pass

source: Interview with Guitar Magazine (June, 1974)

Joe Pass Quotes

"Guitarists should be able to pick up the guitar and play music on it for an hour, without a rhythm section or anything." - Joe Pass

Joe Pass Quotes

"If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterwards." - Joe Pass