MONTGOMERY WES, FOR GUITAR TAB. SHEET MUSIC BOOK WITH GUITAR TABLATURE.
LIBRO DI MUSICA JAZZ.
SPARTITI PER CHITARRA CON:
ACCORDI, PENTAGRAMMA, TABLATURE.
Eleven great songs in easy-to-read guitar tablature and standard notation. 96 pages.
Airegin
Besame Mucho
Blue'n'boogie
Dearly Beloved
Ecaroh
Golden Earrings
In Your Own Sweet Way
Satin Doll
The Way You Look Tonight
Whisper Not
Yesterdays
introduction
by andy jones
John L. 'Wes' Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on 6 March 1923. He started playing the guitar at the age of 19, moving quickly from a four-string guitar to the six-string model. His first influence was the great Charlie Christian.
Wes immediately set about transcribing Christian's recorded solos. One of his first gigs had him reproducing Christian's solos note for note. He wouldn't play anything else!
Wes lapped up information from colleagues and was soon working in his own right. By 1948 he was playing with Lionel Hampton's big band, but, ever the family man, he still operated around Indianapolis.
In 1959 the great alto saxophonist Julian 'Cannonball' Adderley heard Wes one night and immediately decided to introduce him to a wider public.
On Cannonball's recommendation Wes secured a deal with Riverside, beginning an extremely fruitful collaboration which was to revolutionise jazz guitar. Later on he also recorded some fantastic music for the jazz label Verve. Wes was to encounter some criticism over some later recordings with orchestra which focused on lighter pop tunes, but even on these dates there's always something worth checking out. Wes died on 15 June 1968 after a heart attack.
Wes played with his right-hand thumb. He had amazing facility and could play things that few guitarists could come close to even with a plectrum. Wes plays fast eighth-note passages so strongly that he must have used both up and down strokes with his thumb. He also popularised the use of octaves in melodic playing - with fantastic command, as ever. One of the marks of a great player is that he can make very difficult passages sound effortless. Wes always had a strong sound on the instrument where many players lose a considerable amount of tone at fast tempos.
In rhythmic innovation Wes was right up to the minute. He was probably the first guitar player to really absorb the intricacies of rhythm cooked up by the more adventurous modern jazz drummers. He has the ability to really nail a heavy jazz eighth-note feel but he also plays rhythms which use odd groupings of beats, and he could even play all over the underlying pulse. Few guitar players have ever had this hip kind of feel. It's no surprise that John Coltrane asked Wes to be in his great band with Elvin Jones (Wes said no, thinking he wasn't up to the job).
Wes was a true improviser. You can hear this quite clearly by listening to out-takes from his records
(many of the CD reissues of his albums come with out-takes as bonus tracks). His lines encompass
bebop, blues and a free-wheeling approach to melodic improvising. He also had an extremely advanced sense of chord movement, often introducing sly chord substitutions into his treatments of standard tunes. His own tunes are full of hip jazz harmony. Check out 'Twisted Blues' from 'So Much Guitar'.
Regarded as one of the finest jazz musicians on any instrument, Wes is still studied by all serious
aspiring jazz guitarists.
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