Wes Montgomery - Beginnings
Released - 1975
Recording and Session Information
Indianapolis, IN, December 30, 1957
Freddie Hubbard, trumpet; Waymon "Punchy" Atkinson, Alonzo "Pookie" Johnson, tenor sax; Buddy Montgomery, vibes; Joe Bradley, piano; Wes Montgomery, guitar; Monk Montgomery, Fender electric bass; Paul Parker, drums.
Bock To Bock
Billie's Bounce
Joe Bradley, piano; Wes Montgomery, guitar; Monk Montgomery, Fender electric bass; Paul Parker, drums.
ST-2021 Finger Pickin'
Los Angeles, CA, April 18, 1958
Harold Land, tenor sax; Buddy Montgomery, piano; Wes Montgomery, guitar; Monk Montgomery, Fender electric bass; Tony Bazley, drums.
4321 Far Wes
4322 Leila
4323 Old Folks
Wes' Tune
Hymn For Carl
4326 Montgomeryland Funk
Stompin' At The Savoy
Forum Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, April 22, 1958
Buddy Montgomery, vibes; Richie Crabtree, piano; Wes Montgomery, guitar; Monk Montgomery, Fender electric bass; Benny Barth, drums.
Baubles, Bangles And Beads
ST-2028 Stranger In Paradise
Los Angeles, CA, October 1, 1959
Pony Poindexter, alto sax #1,3,4; Buddy Montgomery, piano; Wes Montgomery, guitar; Monk Montgomery, Fender electric bass; Louis Hayes, drums.
Monk's Shop
6555 Summertime
6557 Falling In Love With Love
Renie
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| Wes's Tune | W. Montgomery | April 18 1958 |
| Old Folks | D. L. Hill-W. Robison | April 18 1958 |
| Stranger In Paradise | G. Forrest-R. Wright | April 22 1958 |
| Monk's Shop | W. Montgomery | October 1 1959 |
| Side Two | ||
| Montgomeryland Funk | W. Montgomery | April 18 1958 |
| Summertime | D. Heyward-G. Gershwin | October 1 1959 |
| Falling In Love With Love | R. Rodgers / L. Hart | October 1 1959 |
| Billie's Bounce | C. Parker | December 30 1957 |
| Side Three | ||
| Stompin' At The Savoy | Goodman-Webb-Sampson | April 18 1958 |
| Baubles, Bangles And Beads | G. Forrest-R. Wright | April 22 1958 |
| Bock To Bock | B. Montgomery | December 30 1957 |
| Side Four | ||
| Fingerpickin' | W. Montgomery | December 30 1957 |
| Leila | W. Montgomery | April 18 1958 |
| Far Wes | W. Montgomery | April 18 1958 |
| Renie | W. Montgomery | October 1 1959 |
| Hymn For Carl | H. Land | April 18 1958 |
Liner Notes
WES MONTGOMERY
When Wes Montgomery came out of Indianapolis in 1959 to see what the rest of the world looked like, he upset a lot of people. Like critics. They vied to see who could heap the highest praise on the head of the quiet, unpretentious man who happened to play the living bejabbers out of a guitar.
"A giant!" one declared.
"Like being hit by a thunderbolt," another exclaimed.
"Even greater than I expected!" a third shouted, swooning.
But the hands-down, all-time winner in the battle of exclamation was Ralph J. Gleason, dean of the West Coast critics. Writing in his best I've-seen-it-all-baby-and-I-really-know style, he instructed the masses: "Make no mistake, Wes Montgomery is the best thing to happen to guitar since Charlie Christian."
(A fledgling critic, who shall be nameless, tried to go Gleason one better by flatly stating that Montgomery "is the best thing to happen to jazz guitar, period!" He didn't even come close to copping the cup. He later learned that criticism is no substitute for hyperbole and took to writing album notes.)
Montgomery fever soon spread through the jazz community at large, and the fans outdid the critics. Thousands declared that Wes was the greatest of all guitarists, to the implied detriment of such worthies as Kenny Burrell, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel and, one supposes, Andres Segovia and Hank Garland. But jazz fans — and critics — are like that, always looking for kings, the "best," whatever that means.
Musicians know better, and if there is anything they detest it's a comparison of one man's work to another's. Music is not a contest. There are many flowers, of many hues and shapes, in the garden, and who can say a rose is more beautiful than a lily? There's no need to choose. Enjoy them all.
And it was musicians, not fans, not critics, who spread the word about Wes Montgomery long before he got up the gumption to leave his home town. (Oh, he went out for awhile with Lionel Hampton's screamin' meanies in the early '50s, but that doesn't count.)
Wes had reason to stay in Indianapolis, not the most attractive or stimulating place one could name.
He was getting on — 34 is a bit late in life for a jazz musician to try to make it on the national scene, Besides, he was good and married, with a flock of kids to feed and clothe. He had a day gig and a playing gig, which is about the only secure way a musician can support his family in places like Indianapolis. (It's a tough, grinding life, one in which sleep takes on paramount importance — four hours here, two hours there, catnap on intermissions, wake up not sure where you are or which gig is up. It takes its toll. Wes Montgomery might not have died at 43, of a heart attack, if he hadn't had to work night and day all those years.)
Another reason to stay home: it was comfortable musically. Like most jazz musicians, his close friends were the men he played with, some going all the way back to 1943 when Wes first ventured onto a bandstand to play the Charlie Christian solos he'd memorized from records. It's hard to break the ties that bind like-minded and seemingly equally capable musicians, But Wes had reason to try his luck, too. Besides a large talent, he had two brothers — Monk and Buddy — who had gained a national reputation with their group, the Mastersounds, created in the likeness of the popular Modern Jazz Quartet. Monk and Buddy didn't forget their brother. They raved to critics and record producers about him. They intended to form another group called the Montgomery Brothers and wanted Wes with them. Bookings were assured, Record companies were interested. Things looked awfully good, and Wes made up his mind to give it a whirl.
The first recordings under his own name turned thousands of guitar players all the way 'round. Octaves, octaves, octaves. Never before had a jazz guitarist used octaves as much, or so well, as Wes. In his early work, much of it heard in this album, he employed octaves judiciously, thickening his lines with them, alternating them with chorded and single-note passages, never stepping outside the bounds of good musical taste. The excesses came later, when the big-money boys turned Wes into a highly marketable commodity.
In an interview with Gleason done a couple years after Wes had left Indianapolis, he recalled that "playing octaves was just a coincidence. And it's still such a challenge. I used to have headaches everytime I played octaves, because it was extra strain, but the minute I'd quit I'd be all right. I don't know why, but it was my way, and my way just backfired on me. But now I don't have headaches when I play octaves. I'm just showing you how a strain can capture a cat and almost choke him, but after a while it starts to ease up because you get used to it."
Wes was self-taught (as is every jazz musician, no matter how much he studies formally) and never felt comfortable using a guitar pick. He preferred his right thumb instead.
"That's one of my downfalls, too," he told Gleason. "In order to get a certain amount of speed you should use a pick, I think. A lot of cats say you don't have to play fast, but being able to play fast can make you phrase better. But I just didn't like the sound. I tried it for about two months. Didn't use the thumb at all. But after two months I still couldn't use the pick, so I said I'd go ahead and use the thumb. But then I couldn't use the thumb either, so I asked myself which are you going to use? I liked the tone better with the thumb, but the technique better with the pick, but I couldn't have them both."
That he chose tone is obvious, for his dark, mellow sound is one of the most fetching aspects of his work.
But tone, technique and musical devices are mere means. It is the end, the music — its shape, the ideas underlying it, the response it evokes — that matters.
Wes Montgomery was a master of his art. His improvisations, especially in the early days, were compositions in miniature. Each note sounds as if Wes tore it from the instrument, buffed it a bit and hung it carefully in just the right spot on his ever-moving musical line. Wes Montgomery was a man who knew what he was about.
The recordings in this album are from Wes' late-Indianapolis, early-national period. They are prime examples of what musicians were talking about when they got on the subject of Wes Montgomery back in the '50s.
The earliest performances were recorded in Indianapolis the day before New Year's Eve 1957. The general feeling and repertoire are typical of a late-'50s jam session: post-natal bebop well laced with heady funk. Wes seems completely at ease in the setting, tossing off flowing improvisations with aplomb. His tone was harder and thinner than it was later, and he sometimes let the strings buzz — all of which lent an attractive hotness to his playing. Note the heated intensity of his Billie's Bounce solo, a gem quite different from his latterday pearls.
He switches to a darker tone on brother Buddy's Bock to Bock, also known as Back to Back and Buddy's Original #2. His solo moseys along, without fireworks or bravura, just fine music beautifully put together. He uses a few octaves at the beginning of his second chorus but soon returns to single-note lines. Here the Charlie Christian influence is discernible, not in sound but in time — Wes had absorbed Christian's way of playing eighth notes so they seemed to move slower than the tempo allows, a sure sign of an uncommon musician.
Finger Pickin' is Wes' tour de force, The octaves carom off the walls like handballs in a championship match; Again he uses that hot, buzzy tone. This is the kind of playing that scared hell out of other guitar players.
The other men on the date play very well indeed. The two tenor saxophonists are highly capable in different approaches, Atkinson in the then-current style of diamond-hard tone and streams of notes, Johnson in the older, more romantic, lush-tone school.
Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, making his recording debut, was only 17, and as might be expected, sounded a little nervous. His Billie's Bounce solo is agitated but facile and indicates that he listened well to Fats Navarro, a paragon of bebop. That he also learned well the lessons of Miles Davis is evident in his more restrained and thoughtful improvisation on Bock to Bock.
It's a good bebop rhythm section. Parker obviously had a liking for the way Max Roach played drums, and pianist Bradley knew what Bud Powell and Horace Silver were up to. Bradley's Bock to Bock solo is superb, unfolding as petals from a flower.
Brother Monk confines himself to time-keeping, but Buddy comes forth with a couple of excellent vibes solos, especially the loping, Milt Jacksonish one on Bock to Bock.
Monk and Buddy brought Wes to Los Angeles four months later for a Mastersounds recording date. Stranger in Paradise and Baubles, Bangles and Beads are from that session. Wes' unaccompanied, chorded statement of the Baubles, Bangles and Beads melody and fluent Paradise solo reveal absolute control of his instrument, a vital element seldom mentioned in the many hymns to his greatness.
The performance with tenor saxophonist Harold Land were recorded the same month as the Mastersounds tracks. The tenor-guitar voicing is strikingly similar to that of the Stan Getz Quintet of 1950-51, the group with Jimmy Raney, whom Wes once listed among his favorite guitarists. (One can hear occasional snatches of Raney and Tal Farlow, another Montgomery favorite, in some of Wes' playing on this date.) Even Wes' originals have something of the flavor of compositions the Getz five favored.
The similarity ends there, though. Land and the Montgomerys were their own men and held no truck with imitation. Land, a pro of the first water who never has got the acclaim he deserves, is in fine form, never at a loss for ideas, never hesitant or obscure, always to the point and cogent. Buddy shines on piano. He sometimes indulges in Tatumesque flights, but mostly he snarls in the best Bud Powell manner.
Though Wes was more or less a sideman on the date, as he was on the other sessions represented in this album, he clearly is the outstanding soloist. Old Folks is astonishing, a summation of his approach to his instrument and to music. He displays great respect for Carson Robinson's melody, stating it fairly straight in the opening chorus and embuing it with that deep, dark tone. Then after Land and Buddy have had their ways, Wes builds a flowing, sculptured improvisation that is almost conversational, like a man pleading, crying for love. It is among his finest recorded work.
Something of the Getz-Raney sound carries over to the session with altoist Pony Poindexter, made a year and a half later. Though the performances were not quite up to the extremely high level of the Land tracks, Wes seems to have been in a warm, mellow mood. For example, in his utterly relaxed Falling in Love with Love solo he evokes a feeling — just a whisper, really — of one of his early favorites, Django Reinhardt, the romantic Belgian gypsy. It is one of the few times on record that Wes used a Reinhardt-like vibrato (Leila is another).
This collection is valuable not only because it shows the recorded beginnings of an important musician but also because the music is of high order, If Wes Montgomery had recorded nothing more than these performances, he would have deserved the critics' praise, if not their hyperbole. After all, how does one proceed after being called the greatest thing since Charlie Christian? Wes' reaction to that is not recorded — or is it?
DON DeMiCHAEL
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