The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery remains one of jazz's finest guitar albums. Recorded for Riverside in January 1960 and released in April, the album came out just one month after Montgomery's first album for the label, A Dynamic New Sound.
It's highly unusual for any producer to release two albums by a new artist on top of each other. That's because one is sure to win over record buyers while the other founders. It's unclear why Riverside's Orrin Keepnews did this. The only plausible reason is that Orrin wasn't happy with the first album, especially since it didn't attract much immediate critical acclaim.
Orrin also knew The Incredible Jazz Guitar was much more cohesive and would land a much harder punch with critics and record buyers. So he cut his losses and treated the first as a loss leader, since the second one seemed more like a sure thing. And it was.
Before critics could dismiss Montgomery based on his first uneven record, they found the second one n their desks and raved. The album featured Montgomery on guitar, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Albert Heath on drums. This quartet was much tighter that the organ trio on the first album, and Montgomery's playing was much bolder and assertive with Flangan filling the space behind him.
From start to finish, The Incredible Jazz Guitar is a tour de force. It includes four original compositions by Montgomery that would become jazz standards—D-Natural Blues, Four on Six, West Coast Blues and Mr. Walker.
The other tracks were well known and were treated to Montgomery's swinging groove and iron clad picking thumb: Sonny Rollins's Airegin, Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Dave Brubeck's In Your Own Sweet Way and Gone Witih the Wind, which builds to a torrent of gorgeous chords that continues to raise hairs today. [Photo above of Wes Montgomery]
Here's the complete Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery without ad interruptions...
It's highly unusual for any producer to release two albums by a new artist on top of each other. That's because one is sure to win over record buyers while the other founders. It's unclear why Riverside's Orrin Keepnews did this. The only plausible reason is that Orrin wasn't happy with the first album, especially since it didn't attract much immediate critical acclaim.
Orrin also knew The Incredible Jazz Guitar was much more cohesive and would land a much harder punch with critics and record buyers. So he cut his losses and treated the first as a loss leader, since the second one seemed more like a sure thing. And it was.
Before critics could dismiss Montgomery based on his first uneven record, they found the second one n their desks and raved. The album featured Montgomery on guitar, Tommy Flanagan on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Albert Heath on drums. This quartet was much tighter that the organ trio on the first album, and Montgomery's playing was much bolder and assertive with Flangan filling the space behind him.
From start to finish, The Incredible Jazz Guitar is a tour de force. It includes four original compositions by Montgomery that would become jazz standards—D-Natural Blues, Four on Six, West Coast Blues and Mr. Walker.
The other tracks were well known and were treated to Montgomery's swinging groove and iron clad picking thumb: Sonny Rollins's Airegin, Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Dave Brubeck's In Your Own Sweet Way and Gone Witih the Wind, which builds to a torrent of gorgeous chords that continues to raise hairs today. [Photo above of Wes Montgomery]
Here's the complete Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery without ad interruptions...
This story appears courtesy of JazzWax by Marc Myers.
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