The dual output for Joe Pass.
Bacci GuitarsPescia, Tuscany
Put a single guitar in Joe Pass's hands and you heard a trio. A walking bass line on the bottom, rich chords in the middle, a singing melody on top, all at once, all from ten fingers and six strings. His Virtuoso records are the high-water mark of solo jazz guitar, the sound of one person being a whole rhythm section and a soloist in the same breath.
Chord-melody at that level is an act of beautiful compromise. The bass line and the melody are fighting for the same six strings, the same hands, the same instant, and the genius is in making the listener forget the compromise is there.
Which is exactly why, of all the imagined pairings, this one feels the most pointed. The Bacci dual output was built to remove that compromise.
A Bacci Leonardo splits a guitar voice and a dedicated bass voice onto two jacks.
The Bacci Leonardo is a baritone with two separate outputs: a full guitar voice across all the strings, and a dedicated bass voice from a capsule on the three low strings, each with its own volume and its own jack. Send them to two amps and the bass line and the chordal melody each get their own space, their own tone, their own room in the mix.
For a chord-melody player that is not a gimmick, it is the dream. The walking bass no longer has to share a string and a speaker with the melody on top. One performance, two voices, the trio Joe Pass conjured out of one guitar, now with the bass given a voice of its own.
Guitar out, two channels, or two amps: the dual output, explained.
There is a reason the baritone has become the instrument of a new generation of harmonically ambitious players. It gives a line its own foundation, phrasing that breathes below the guitar, without a second instrument in the room. That is chord-melody's oldest wish, stated as a design goal.
Joe Pass made the wish come true with technique alone, which is why he is a legend. Hand him an instrument that grants it in the build, a guitar voice and a bass voice from one performance, and you can only imagine what the next Virtuoso record would have sounded like.
Chord-melody is one player trying to be three. The dual output gives the third one a voice.
On Joe Pass and the LeonardoThis is an homage, not a claim. Joe Pass needed no help being a whole band, and the instruments of his time served his genius perfectly. But if we ask what his documented art points toward, the answer is almost uncanny: an instrument built to do, in the wiring, the exact thing he did with his hands.
A Bacci Leonardo, a baritone that carries a bass inside, handbuilt to order in Tuscany. Chord-melody, with the bass line finally given its own voice.
Joe Pass was one of the great solo jazz guitarists, a master of chord-melody playing, where a single guitarist holds down a bass line, chords and melody all at once. His Virtuoso albums are landmarks of unaccompanied guitar.
Chord-melody is a solo style where one player voices the melody on top, the harmony underneath, and often a walking bass line below that, all on one guitar at the same time. Joe Pass was its supreme practitioner.
Chord-melody is one player trying to be three: bass, harmony and melody at once. The Bacci Leonardo dual output literally splits a guitar voice and a dedicated bass voice onto two outputs, so the bass line and the chordal melody can each have their own space. It is chord-melody with the bass given its own voice.
A single baritone with two independent outputs, a full guitar voice and a dedicated bass voice from a capsule on the low strings, so one player can deliver both at once, live and in the studio.
No. This is an homage, our view of the instrument Joe Pass's documented style points toward, not a claim that he played or endorsed one.
Yes. The Leonardo is handbuilt to order in Tuscany, to your scale, strings and finish. You can start from the Leonardo page.
The Leonardo dual output gives your bass line and your chordal melody each their own voice, from one performance. Handbuilt to order in Tuscany.
Every Bacci is designed, built and set up by Bruno, one at a time, in Pescia.