Virtuoso (Joe Pass album)

Reception

Contemporaneous reviews were positive. For example, The Guardian commented on Pass' "staggering dexterity, [...] matched by his fluency of ideas and the originality of his voicing", and The Irish Times stated that, "Apart from a certain fallibility with regard to time, Pass is without significant fault, a fact borne out by the quite incredible performances here". Looking back from 2005, All About Jazz described the album as "the recording to announce that Joe Pass had arrived", and said that he had "accomplished, using standard guitar performance techniques, to play lead melody lines, chords, and bass rhythm simultaneously and at tempo, giving the listener the impression that multiple guitars were being played".

Track listing

1. "Night and Day" (Cole Porter) – 3:32
2. "Stella by Starlight" (Ned Washington, Victor Young) – 5:10
3. "Here's That Rainy Day" (Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 3:36
4. "My Old Flame" (Sam Coslow, Arthur Johnston) – 5:17
5. "How High the Moon" (Nancy Hamilton, Morgan Lewis) – 4:59
6. "Cherokee" (Ray Noble) – 3:37
7. "Sweet Lorraine" (Cliff Burwell, Mitchell Parish) – 4:09
8. "Have You Met Miss Jones?" (Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart) – 4:42
9. "'Round Midnight" (Bernie Hanighen, Thelonious Monk, Cootie Williams) – 3:38
10. "All the Things You Are" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern) – 4:01
11. "Blues for Alican" (Joe Pass) – 5:29
12. "The Song Is You" (Hammerstein, Kern) – 4:34

Personnel

Sales and chart positions

Virtuoso outsold nearly every other release in the Pablo catalog and established Pass as the premier mainstream jazz guitarist of the time.