Wes Montgomery (electric guitar), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Percy Heath (bass) and Albert Heath (drums). From the album The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery (1960).
This album entered the American music scene like a benign hurricane in 1960 and established Montgomery as the most influential guitarist in modern jazz, swinging with the fluidity, determination and vigour not heard in an electric guitarist since Charlie Christian. It’s a real pleasure to listen to the relaxed atmosphere created by the four musicians.
Album cover
In this recording four songs were composed by Montgomery and we can find in it from the bebop of Sonny Rollins’s “Airegin”, the modal jazz and hard bop of “Four on Six”, to the soul waltz “West Coast Blues”, with its famous melody performed without effort. Flanagan plays strongly on bebop settings, but offering his characteristic delicacy in the ballads. With the dynamic rhythm section of the brothers Percy Heath on bass and Albert Heath on drums, Montgomery shows a great talent in the company of his sidemen.
Wes Montgomery
Montgomery begins to expose the theme and then the rest of the group join him. Flanagan comes in right away with some very bluesy melodies taking care of each of the notes and his phrases are very well articulated. Then Montgomery arrives with a beautiful speech that blows your imagination. His melodic line is unhurried and attractive, and then he makes a solo using octaves in which he accelerates the rhythm, showing the possibilities of this technique. Percy Heath follows gently playing a short solo, almost as if he were embarrassed, and finally the group re-exposes the theme.
© Riverside Records/OJC
