Two upcoming programs will celebrate the music of this giant of jazz guitar:
- Dimensions in Jazz Sunday afternoon March 5 (2:00 – 4:00 p.m.): Larry Garde, in consultation with jazz host John Arvish, will present a guitar-centric program highlighting Wes Montgomery’s importance in jazz. (We’ll also include a salute to a less well-known but influential guitarist Mick Goodrick, who died in November, 2022.)
- Monday Music Special, Monday, March 6 (8:00 – 9:00 p.m.) In celebration of Wes’ actual 100th birthday, host Larry Garde, will present an entertaining hour of Montgomery recordings.
If it were up to me, March 6, 2023 would be a national holiday. For that date represents the 100th birthday of one John Leslie Montgomery, known to the world as Wes Montgomery – and to jazz fans simply as Wes.
Although he was once one of the few jazz artists with so-called “crossover appeal” - his album A Day in the Life was the rare recording by a jazz artist to be designated “gold” (sales of more than 500,000 units) in the year that it was released (1967) – it seems that the wider public today is largely unfamiliar with his name and music. However in the realm of jazz guitar, he will always be remembered as a giant.
So in celebration of Wes’ milestone birthday, let’s look at some biographical highlights of this path-breaking musician’s career and attempt to find out how and why he attained and still holds such a vaunted position in the world of jazz.
Background
Like his most abiding musical progenitor, Charlie Christian, Wes came from the great wide-open middle of the country - Christian from Oklahoma City, Wes and his musically-gifted brothers from Indianapolis, Indiana. Although Indianapolis was never the jazz hub that say New Orleans, Kansas City, or Chicago was, like many other American urban centers such as Detroit or Pittsburgh, it had a vibrant African American community, and in the 1950s and 60s, a lively jazz scene. Other notable jazz musicians nurtured in Indy’s jazz venues of the time include trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, trombonist J.J. Johnson, and Wes’ two brothers Buddy and Monk. (William “Monk” Montgomery, incidentally, became one of the first bassists to covert from playing acoustic upright to embracing and employing the Fender bass, i.e. electric bass guitar.)
Although Wes did play a 4-string tenor guitar in his early teen years (purchased from a pawn shop for $13 dollars given to him by his brother, Monk), he didn’t begin serious pursuit of mastering the 6-string until he was 19. And, apart from the isolated spot as a sideman in Lionel Hampton’s big band and a few other such dates, it was another decade before Wes’ guitar was heard on nationally-distributed recordings that featured his playing. Fortunately for jazz fans and music lovers, despite his late start, and premature death from heart attack at the age 45, Wes recorded prolifically from about 1959, when he was already in his mid-30s, until his untimely death in 1968.
As critic Ralph Gleason said early on in this period, “Make no mistake, Wes Montgomery is the best thing to happen to the guitar since Charlie Christian.” I don’t believe Gleason meant to slight any of the marvelous guitarists that followed in Charlie Christian’s wake and preceded Wes. (Indeed, in the years after Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis at age 25, a small number of talented guitar players, by adapting Christian’s advances, and adding to them their assimilation of the innovations of saxophonist Charlie Parker to their, were refining the guitar’s place in “modern jazz”. ) If anything, Gleason’s familiarity and respect for these guitarists only emphasized how highly he regarded Wes’ playing.
Technique and Musicianship
So what was it – what is it about Wes Montgomery’s musicianship that gave it that timeless quality?
For good reason, certain stylistic traits are always cited when discussing Wes’ playing. First, he made a conscious decision at some early point to forego the use of a pick (or plectrum). “But,” you might object, “many guitarists in other genres (e.g. classical, flamenco, and certain folk and blues styles) don’t play with a pick.” True. Generally speaking, these players use the thumb of the plucking hand on bass strings, and one, two, or three fingers on the treble strings. Often they employ fingernails in the process. But Wes used the flesh of his right-hand thumb almost exclusively to pluck notes. This gave his sound a warmth almost impossible to achieve with the pick.
The other outstanding characteristic of his playing that jumps out and tells a listener that they are hearing Wes (or a Wes imitator), is the improvised solo lines played in octaves. Without getting too technical, suffice to say that, even as the octave is a rather obvious interval in Western music, playing octaves fluidly on the guitar is anything but obvious, because it is anything but easy.
Influence
We can acknowledge that Wes Montgomery’s overall influence on the entire jazz genre is not that of, say, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gilespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, or Ornette Coleman. But, when it comes to the role of the guitar in jazz, Wes’ place is simply undeniable. The list is long of notable jazz guitar players in whose playing Wes’ influence is quite obvious: George Benson, Pat Martino, Jimmy Ponder, Emily Remler, Henry Johnson, and Lee Ritenour, to name a few.
But perhaps even more remarkable is the enormous number of world-renowned guitarists whose style may not closely resemble Wes’, but who have repeatedly stressed in interviews the importance of Wes’ playing on their development. Larry Coryell, John Abercrombie, Pat Metheny, Mike Stern, come to mind immediately. Even rock guitarists Eric Johnson and Carlos Santana consistently cite Wes as a favorite. Furthermore, many of the greatest jazz guitarists whose style was already formed and whose careers were well-established by the time Wes came onto the scene have expressed their admiration as well. Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Jimmy Raney, Kenny Burrell, and Jim Hall, among others, come to mind in this regard. Bluesman B.B. King, whose innovative way of bending notes and producing vibrato on a guitar string has influenced virtually every blues and rock guitarist who came after him (whether they know it or not), once said before headlining a jazz festival in Indianapolis “There’s never been a guitarist better than Wes Montgomery. Never, ever, ever.”
It is one thing to cite testimonials of other musicians. But a curious person unfamiliar with Wes Montgomery might logically ask “What is it about his music that they love so much?” Considering that the guitar has been the most-played instrument in the world for more than half a century, one can readily point to many advances in technique and to novel playing-approaches during that time. So many masterful players have, for so many year, been playing things that were unimaginable when Charlie Christian was alive, that one might ask, “Have Wes’ skills been eclipsed?” I would answer with a resounding and unequivocal “No.”
“Lick-free Improvising”
While Wes Montgomery’s technique was anything but text-book, it was nonetheless formidable. Yet his playing was never about technique. It was rather about communicating emotions and important things most effectively expressed musically. When I consider what it is about Wes’ music that appeals so much to me, certain words come to mind. Whereas some great jazz is challenging or even “difficult”, I find Wes’ music always inviting, always welcoming. It seems to convey optimism and possesses in huge measure the qualities I value in jazz:
- Wes’ ability to improvise cliché-free coherent melodic lines over virtually any chord changes alone places him among the upper echelons of great jazz musicians. His improvisations can truly be heard as “spontaneous composition”. This is the goal of 99.9% of all great jazz musicians. Few achieve it as consistently and with the level of cohesive musical logic and continuity of melodic line that Wes reached pretty much every time he picked up his instrument.
- The beauty of his sound is remarkable. Whereas most contemporary guitarists - including jazz players - have “pedal boards” with all manner of tone-enhancement devices, Wes achieved his sound by plugging into an amp and allowing his fingers to do the rest. The man had beautiful tone.
- When I hear Wes’ music, it often occurs to me that being able to play a guitar like that must be about the absolutely most fun thing a human could ever do in this life.
- Wes had soul. His playing has so much conviction, and so much depth of feeling. I can think of few other musicians who can express the outright exuberance and joy heard on a piece such as “Tear it Down”. Likewise, Wes could be tender, earthy, maybe even melancholy, all while feeling a deep groove, such as displayed on “Bumpin’” or “Bumpin’ on Sunset”.
- Wes’ prowess at playing blues ranks him among the most elite players in the music’s history in that prized area. The man could play some blues. Many of his compositions use the 12-bar format. Wes’ roots went deep. But his harmonic vocabulary was so broad, and his phrasing so adept, his musical imagination so active, that one never hears the same licks repeated over and over. In the years since his death many so-called “alternate takes” of selections originally included on albums have been released. When listening to alternate takes by some musicians, it can be difficult to discern much difference take-to-take. But, in Wes’ case, even when the tempo, accompaniment, and written ensemble parts are virtually identical, Wes’ separate flights of improvisation can be very, very different from one another. After listening to the two existing versions of “Fried Pies”, for example, one gets the sense that Wes could go on inventing fresh, original, soulful blues choruses almost indefinitely. I love the blues, and so I absolutely love that about his music.
- Wes’ music is rhythmically exciting. For example, listen to his playing on pieces like “Movin Wes (Pt.2)”, “Twisted Blues”, “Green Peppers” or his recording of “Caravan”. He seems to have preferred medium tempos, but he could burn when the situation demanded. At the same time he could be incredibly tender when he played ballads.
- Latin grooves? No problem. Check out “Moca Flor”.
- Wes’ playing was so strong and so unique that his talent for writing is sometimes unjustly overlooked. He wrote a number of compelling original songs, such as “West Coast Blues”, “Four on Six”, “Jingles”, “Fingerpickin’”, “Mr. Walker”, “OGD”, “Sun Down”, and many more.
- Wes had an identity, a recognizable “voice”. You hear the first note or two, and you know it’s him playing.
- I love his manner of including a device common to much African American music – that of so-called “call-response’, where he’ll play a line in single notes or octaves and immediately “answer” with a chord (or chords) such that the effect is of two minds at work – a soloist and aresponding horn section. I know of no musician on any instrument who does this single-handedly in as effective a manner. It can be absolutely thrilling.
Anything missing?
Fair warning: Certain attributes valued by many today are notably absent in Wes’ music; and if these qualities are important to a given listener, it may require some serious attention to “get it” with Wes. For example, I would say his music does not possess “attitude”, as that expression is often used today. His playing is never “in your face”. I believe that the man may simply have been too gentle and modest a soul to express himself in that way. His music is perhaps more subtle. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t swing his butt off, nor that he couldn’t and/or didn’t get “earthy”. For those willing to listen closely, the passion, heart, and humanity in his playing will come through every time.
Radio Tribute and Birthday Party
I hope you’ll join me in celebrating the guitar in jazz this Sunday; and for an appreciation of Wes Montgomery’s importance in that development next Monday - the anniversary of the 100th year since his birth.
