How To Play Django’s Castle by Joe Pass

A take on Joe Pass’ rendition of Manoir de Mes Rêves by Django Reinhardt. Packed with beautiful story-telling with and Joe Pass’ iconic lines and chord-melody playing. Isn’t it just on of the most beautiful ballads Joe Pass has recorded? I remember listening to this before going to sleep, while I was studying it, in the hope it would sink into my mind. In these two videos, you’ll see how to play Django’s Castle by Joe Pass.

Lesson Materials

In my study time I’ve created a transcription and a backingtrack for this piece, and made a separate video fro it for your convenience. The transcription and backing-track are available for sale here:

Manoir de mes Rèves

The original composition is called ‘Manoir De Mes Rèves’ and written by the famous Gypsy Jazz guitarist Django Rheinhardt. Joe Pass’ beautiful rendition is on the ‘For Django’ album, which hence the title speaks for itself.

Guitar Sound Accident

In searching for the right sound to record this video with. Trying basic clean qualty amp-sims and gentle processing, with layered reverb. At some point I felt I got it close enough to where I wanted it. I then realised that that was the moment that all processing was actually bypassed! 😉 So yeah! The sound you hear in the video above is my 1953 Gibson ES-125 plugged in directly, nothing more, and nothing less.

Enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

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