06.24.07
This is why God created human beings
From 1965, the singularly sublime Wes Montgomery.
I know, especially if you’re a guitarist, your temptation will be to watch what his left hand is doing, but pay occasional attention to his right hand. He’s doing all that shit with his thumb! All that thirty-second-note stuff – oh, man! Also look at the offhand way the experience of elan shows up on his face. It’s obvious he’s immensely grateful to his creator for the opportunity to be expressing this, but he’s so supremely cool about it.
Last year, when I did my Sunday-afternoon audition for the Aebersold workshop (which I’ll be attending again next week; more on that soon), the main faculty member who scrutinized me had me do some runs while he played a few II-V7-Is. Afterward he said, “Why don’t you use a pick?” I gave him some mealy-mouthed answer, when the truth was that I’d just plumb forgotten to bring any with me. He said that in jazz one generally is going for a legato feel to one’s lines, and that a pick is generally used. (He did say he liked what I’d played, but that he’d be interested in hearing what it sounded like with a pick.) I wonder if he’s ever seen this stuff.
Wes, man. The best. Not dissing Django or Burrell or Tal Farlow or Barney Kessel or John McLaughlin, but there’s those cats and then there’s the man from the Missile Room.
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2007 at 3:36 am
George Benson, in the liner notes of the Ultimate Wes Montgomery album, wrote that “Wes had a corn on his thumb, which gave his sound that point. He would get one sound for the soft parts, and then that point by using the corn. That’s why no one will ever match Wes. And his thumb was double-jointed. He could bend it all the way back to touch his wrist, which he would do to shock people.”
Montgomery’s home town of Indianapolis has named a park in his honor. Seems there should be a 17 mile section of I 65 dedicated to him rather than Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds–a living R& B Superstar who cannot hold a candle to Wes. Who caved on that one? Must have been some sort of compromise concession from then-mayor Steve Goldsmith.
Many jazz and rock guitarists today list Montgomery among their influences including: Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrix, Pat Martino, Lee Ritenour, Pat Metheny, George Benson, Pete Smyser, Chris Standring, Eric Johnson, Steve Howe, Yoshiaki Miyanoue and Joe Satriani and the blogstrummer. American guitarist Emily Remler entitled one of her albums ‘East to Wes’ in tribute to him.
By some accounts, Montgomery has been the most influential jazz guitarist of all time, whose style has transcended into other forms of music, including Rock ‘n’ Roll, Soul, and Rhythm and Blues. Many songwriters and composers have written musical tributes to him, including Stevie Wonder and Eric Johnson.[citation needed]
Bentnotesmanhisself said,
June 25, 2007 at 1:08 pm
A point of full agreement between Bentnotesmanhisself and Mr. Dings! What’s next? Two peacefully coexisting states on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean?