Wes Montgomery

Born: March 6, 1923

Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States (where he also died of a heart attack in 1968), Montgomery came from a musical family, in which his brothers, Monk (string bass and electric bass) and Buddy (vibraphone, and piano), were jazz performers. Although Wes was not skilled at reading music, he could learn complex melodies and riffs by ear. Montgomery started learning guitar in his late teens, listening to and learning recordings of his idol, the guitarist Charlie Christian.

Along with the use of octaves (playing the same note on two strings one octave apart) for which he is widely known, Montgomery was also an excellent "single-line" or "single-note" player, and was very influential in the use of block chords in his solos. His playing on the jazz standard "Lover Man" is an example of his single-note, octave and block chord soloing. ("Lover Man" appears on the Fantasy album THE MONTGOMERY BROTHERS.) Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with the fleshy part of his thumb, using downstrokes for single notes and a combination of upstrokes and downstrokes for chords and octaves. This technique enabled him to get a mellow, expressive tone from his guitar. 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."

Mike Clark: Standard Deviations

by Paul Rauch
August 6, 2025

Bringing new life to jazz standards is a longtime tradition in jazz, whether it be on the bandstand or in the studio. With their latest Sunnyside recording, Standard Deviations, the iconic drummer Mike Clark and Los Angeles-based tenor saxophonist Michael Zilber venture there once again, following Mike Drop, their 2021 Sunnyside release. The result is a ...

Muriel Grossmann: MGQ Live Im King Georg, K?ln

by Mark Corroto
August 5, 2025

Muriel Grossmann has firmly established herself in the realm of spiritual groove jazz. With her 19th release as a leader, the Paris-born, Vienna-raised saxophonist--now based in Spain--presents her first live recording. Joined by her long-standing ensemble MGQ, which features Serbian-born guitarist Radomir Milojkovic and drummer Uros Stamenkovic, along with Spanish Hammond B3 organist Abel Boquera, the ...

Ola Onabul��: A Tapestry of Soul, Jazz and Global Roots

by Angelo Leonardi
July 25, 2025

Singer-songwriter and producer Ola Onabulé shares insights into his life and work, spotlighting his eclectic collaboration with guitarist Nicolas Meier, which led to the release of Proof of Life (Self Produced, 2025). Both based in London, the British-Nigerian vocalist and Swiss guitarist discovered, during the isolation of the pandemic, a shared empathy in their ...

Louis Stewart: I Thought About You

by Ian Patterson
July 24, 2025

For jazz guitar fans, and for aficionados of Irish guitarist Louis Stewart in particular, the 2022 relaunch of '70s label Livia Records has been manna from heaven. This is the born-again label's fifth reissue of the great Dublin six-stringer's out-of-print recordings since the series launched with Stewart's other 1977 album Out on His Own (Livia Records, ...

Steve Bryant: New Town

by Kyle Simpler
July 24, 2025

Near the end of James Baldwin's short story, “Sonny's Blues," the narrator watches Sonny perform in a jazz club, where he describes the crowd as gathering around the piano while Sonny's fingers filled the air with life, his life. But that life contained so many others. In many ways, this description captures the essence of musicianship. ...

Ola Onabul��: una musica senza confini

by Angelo Leonardi
July 21, 2025

Il cantautore e produttore Ola Onabulé ci parla della sua vita e del suo lavoro a partire dall'eclettica collaborazione col chitarrista Nicolas Meier, che ha portato alla recente uscita dell'album Proof of Life. Entrambi residenti a Londra, il vocalist britannico d'origine nigeriana e il chitarrista svizzero hanno scoperto, nei mesi dell'isolamento pandemico, di condividere empaticamente i ...

Kristen R. Bromley Quartet: Wes 101

by Jack Bowers
June 13, 2025

Guitarist Kristen Bromley does not try to hide her admiration for an illustrious predecessor, the late great Wes Montgomery. Indeed, that respect is the central theme on Wes 101, Bromley's seventh recording as leader and/or soloist. She and her quartet embrace eight of her charming and luminous compositions, several of which were inspired by tunes that ...

Dave Stryker: Stryker with Strings Goes to the Movies

by Richard J Salvucci
May 27, 2025

If this recording were named “Dave Stryker Plays Bernard Hermann" (or Mikl��s R��zsa or Elmer Bernstein), well that would be just fine. They were all gifted composers who wrote film scores. The consensus would likely be that a musician like Stryker was hardly wasting his time, but Stryker With Strings Goes to the Movies hits the ...

Jackie McLean, Eugene Chadbourne, and Miho Hazama

by Jerome Wilson
May 14, 2025

Technical difficulties prevented me from recording last week's show, so instead here is a vintage one from February 9, 2021. The musicians featured here include Jackie McLean, Susan Alcorn. Miho Hazama, Dave Burrell, and Eugene Chadbourne. Playlist Henry Threadgill Sextett “I Can't Wait Till I Get Home" from The Complete Novus & Columbia Recordings ...