Image via Indiana Public Media
Wes Montgomery had a unique playing style that distinguished him as a top jazz guitarist of the early and mid- sixties. Being a big man, Wes had large hands, and he used the thumb of his right hand, and not a pick, to pluck and strum the strings of his huge hollow-bodied Gibson L-5 arch top guitar. By using the flesh of his thumb he was able to create a mellow tone – a sound quality desired by most jazz guitarists – and his long fingers covered a wide fret range. He also made extensive use of octaves in his playing.
Wes began playing on a tenor (four-string) guitar, a gift from his brother Monk, who played bass, and they noodle around together with their other brother Buddy on piano. But Wes did not really get interested in guitar until at age 19 he heard Charlie Christian play. Then he was hooked. He asked his mother to help him buy a guitar and amplifier, and he was on his way.
Biograper Oliver Dunskus writes in Wes Montgomery: His Life and his Music that the guitarist said of his early days of playing:
"When I started, I got a box of picks because I felt sure there's be the right one in there for me. I refused to play unamplified, so I'm sitting in my house playing, you know — happy, but when I used my brand-new amplifier, I guess I didn't think about the neighbors. Soon they started complaining pretty heavy. After two months my wife came to the door and asked me would I kindly turn that thing off. Well, 'thing'? It was a guitar and amplifier, you know, so I laid my pick on the amplifier and just fiddled around with the thumb. I said is that better? Oh yes, she says, that's better. So I said I'll play like this til I get ready to play out (...) so I said 'later' for the pick, I'll just use my thumb. The more I learned about it, I found out that less guys are using their thumbs, and I began to get a little frightened... A club owner happened to come down the street and he knocked on the door and asked who was that playing. I said me. He did not believe it and I didn't believe he was a club owner, either. But we got together and he offered me a job in his club. Me, working? And I had only been playing a couple of months. So I go to the club and I find that I'm featured. I'd come on and just play Charlie Christian solos from the records because at that time that was all I could play. Of course, the other musicians knew this, but one day I got a hand so big that they wouldn't let me off the stage, but I couldn't play nothing else. It was so embarrassing, so I said I've got to go back and start practicing...”
And practice he did, learning by ear, continuing to copy the solos of his idol Charlie Christian straight from the records. It was Christian and Django Reinhardt who had set the precedent for the styles of jazz guitar at that time. Wes practiced as much as possible while working a day job as a welder at a factory. Developing a style that was three-tiered, Wes often began his solos with single notes harmonically taken from chord substitutions, not settling for the three-chord blues-based structure. Step two was the execution of octaves, and finally he blended in chord melody motifs. The guitarist toured with Lionel Hampton in 1948 – 1950 while continuing to hone his chops in the early to mid ‘50s.
By the late 50’s so dominant and expressive was his technique and style Jim Hall - another top jazz guitarist at this time said when he first heard Wes Montgomery he knew he “would never be able to play like that.” Jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason claimed when he first heard Wes “it was like a bolt of lightning.”
Saxophonist Cannonball Adderly passed the word about this new guitar wizard to Orrin Keepnews of Riverside records, and a deal was sealed. In his lifetime Wes went on to record 22 albums in which he was the lead instrumentalist on the Riverside, Verve, and the A&M labels.
Wes was just as impressive on-stage playing with many of the top-name jazz musicians, one of his most famous being the John Coltrane/Eric Dolphy Sextet for two weeks in September 1961, although no recording was made of this colossal group. In addition he led a band that incuded three members of Miles Davis’ 1959 Kind of Blue group: Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums.
Even though he had critical acclaim, had led the best musicians in his chosen musical genre, and had won awards such as Downbeat’s Guitarist of the Year 1960 – 1963 and 1966 and ’67, several Grammy Awards, and made national television show appearances including the Johnny Carson Tonight Show, his life as a musician was often a struggle. This situation was first of all due to the fact that jazz gigs were not abundant in his hometown Indianapolis – the Turf and the Missile Club being the most prominent - and Wes did not like to stay away from his wife and seven children for too long at a time.
In 1965 Verve Records producer Creed Taylor persuaded Wes to make records as the main instrumentalist in a more commercial vein. He did so and got radio play from “Willow Weep for Me,” “Going Out of My Head,” “California Dreaming,” “Tequila,” and “A Day in the Life,” which had already been hits by vocal groups, and Wes would record instrumental versions. Most jazz musicians claimed Wes’s best work had been done on the Riverside label from 1959 – 1964 - a pure jazz treatment - and the pop tunes he was playing in the mid-sixties paled in comparison.
Wes himself even commented to his Verve Records producer Taylor that he was constantly depressed by his own playing on his recordings. And playing on the road was taking its toll as well. Fly out for a series of gigs, fly back in without spending too much time “out there” doing his best to make a living for his family. In mid-June 1968 he flew back home from a national tour, and he had decided enough was enough for traveling, and in the future he would play dates with his brothers Buddy and Monk in Indianapolis.
However, he never played one of these gigs with Buddy and Monk. Wes Montgomery died of a heart attack at his home on June 15, 1968, shortly after arriving there following a tour.
Like Charlie Christian his time in the spotlight had not been long. But also like Christian he brought to the genre a sound and a technique that was truly original, truly his own. Also, Wes Montgomery was a catalyst for many of the jazz players of his own day as well as to a younger generation of diverse guitarists including: George Benson, Ted Greene, Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Hunter, Eric Johnson. Pat Martino, Pat Metheny, Lee Ritenour, John Scofield, Mark Whitfield, and many more laying down their licks, inspired by the Master who followed Charlie Christian as the heir to the throne of the king of electric jazz guitar in America.
Kenneth Parsons' work has appeared in many literary magazines. He is the author of two historical fiction novels: Our Mad Brother Villon (2015) and Boppin' to the Blue Beat (2022), available on Amazon. He lives in Goyang City with his wife Song Seon Sook and is a retired EFL professor from Seoul universities.