Today, we celebrate guitar virtuoso Joe Pass' birthday. The jazz heavyweight would have been 85 years old.
Pass was born Anthony Jacobi Passalacqua and lived in New Brunswick, N.J. during his formative years. From a young age, Pass showed an unwavering interest in learning how to play the guitar. His father, Mariano, who was less than a musician, saw the young guitarist's talent early on and decided to push his son towards a life of music. The young Pass practiced six hours a day and was pressed by his father to learn pieces by ear that the two heard over the radio.
One of Pass' earliest collaborations was with saxophonist Charlie Barnet in 1947.
Upon graduating high school, Pass would become addicted to heroin, spending the next 10 years of his life combating a drug habit. (Pass stayed mostly quiet about his problems, though he did state in interviews that the '50s were a waste of a decade and had no contribution to his style or talent--something that most jazz musicians of the time attributed to the drug.)
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