Wes Montgomery Homage from Lindsey Blair

courtesy of The Tracking Station

This past August Southernmost Records released an album produced by guitarist Lindsey Blair. The title of the album was All Wes All Day, and those even remotely connected to the jazz scene will immediately recognize that the album is a tribute to Wes Montgomery. Blair leads a quartet whose other members are Mike Levine on piano, Waldo Madera on drums, and Nicky Orta on bass.

Ironically, this morning began with the SiriusXM Real Jazz channel playing “Yesterdays” from the Riverside Wes Montgomery Trio album, with Montgomery leading Melvin Rhyne on organ and Paul Parker on drums. However, the title of Blair’s album suggests that it consists entirely of Montgomery’s own compositions (one of which, “Jingles,” was on that Wes Montgomery Trio album, his first on the Riverside label). Blair’s title is almost accurate. It applies to the first nine tracks, while the last is Carl Perkins’ “Groove Yard,” which also has a place in the Montgomery discography.

Montgomery had a distinctive approach to plucking, which allowed him to play the same sorts of intricate improvisations that could be found among other instrumentalists associated with bebop and post-bop. (After jamming with Montgomery, John Coltrane invited him to join his group; but Montgomery chose to go his own way.) Much of Montgomery’s work tends toward understatement, but that just evokes the familiar illusion of still waters that run deep. Montgomery was prodigiously inventive, to the extent that, as has been said of the jazz pianist Art Tatum, a little bit can go a long way.

It is hard to imagine anyone doing justice to the Montgomery discography, not just due to his own inventiveness but also to have that inventiveness played off of the many giants with whom he jammed. On the Riverside albums alone one encounters both Adderleys (Cannonball and Nat), Tommy Flanagan and Bobby Timmons on piano, and bass players that include Ray Brown and Paul Chambers. Nevertheless, Blair has a keen sense of what makes that music tick; and he knows how to get that ticking to spread across his entire combo (including the far richer instrumentation for the “Far Wes” track).

As a “tribute” effort, All Wes All Day definitely knows how to capture Montgomery’s spirit; but I must confess that it urges me to spend more time listening to the Montgomery recordings in my collection!