Wes Montgomery
Wes Montgomery is the most influential jazz guitarist of the 1960s. His octave technique and thumb-picked tone shaped every generation of jazz guitarists who followed him. The catalog moves through three distinct phases: the Pacific Jazz and Riverside small-group dates that established him, the orchestrated Verve records produced by Creed Taylor that brought him commercial success, and the A&M years that closed his career as one of the best-selling jazz musicians of his era. Twenty-six albums across three eras. Browse below.
Browse by Era
Each era page covers a distinct period in Wes's career, with full reviews, personnel details, Apple Music audio previews, and album art for every record.
Fourteen albums covering Montgomery's first half-decade on record. From the Pacific Jazz debut and the Indianapolis sessions with brothers Buddy and Monk through the Riverside years that established him as the foremost jazz guitarist of his generation. The Incredible Jazz Guitar, Full House, and the small-group dates with Tommy Flanagan and Wynton Kelly all fall in this stretch.
Eight Verve records produced by Creed Taylor. Movin' Wes, Bumpin', the Smokin' at the Half Note live date with Wynton Kelly, the Jimmy Smith collaboration, and the orchestrated pop-jazz sessions that drew critical complaint at the time and broad commercial acceptance from the same audience that bought Stan Getz's bossa nova records.
Four records made in the final year and a half of Montgomery's life, the period when he became one of the most commercially successful jazz musicians in America. A Day in the Life, Down Here on the Ground, Road Song, and the posthumous Jimmy Smith date. He died of a heart attack in June 1968, at age forty-five.
Wes Montgomery, 1923–1968
John Leslie Montgomery was born March 6, 1923, in Indianapolis. He took up the guitar at nineteen and was largely self-taught, working out his approach by listening to Charlie Christian records and playing along note-for-note in his apartment. The thumb-picking technique that became his signature, he told interviewers, came from his neighbors complaining about the noise; using his thumb instead of a pick gave him a softer tone that they could tolerate.
He played the Indianapolis scene through the 1940s and early 1950s, sometimes alongside his brothers Buddy and Monk. A stretch on the road with Lionel Hampton's band in 1948 to 1950 was his major early professional credit. He returned to Indianapolis afterward and worked day jobs while playing local club dates at night. Cannonball Adderley heard him play at the Missile Room in 1959 and put a call into Orrin Keepnews at Riverside. Keepnews signed him on the spot.
The Riverside years (1959 to 1963) established Montgomery as the leading jazz guitarist of his generation. The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery won the 1960 DownBeat critics poll, and the small-group records that followed (Full House, Boss Guitar, So Much Guitar!) made him a fixture of the Blue Note and Prestige session circuit. The Verve years that followed under Creed Taylor's production traded the small-group format for orchestrated arrangements, drawing critical complaint at the time and broad commercial acceptance.
The A&M years (1967 to 1968) pushed even further toward the pop crossover that Taylor had been steering Montgomery toward. A Day in the Life won a Grammy and became one of the best-selling jazz albums of the decade. Montgomery died of a heart attack on June 15, 1968, at his home in Indianapolis. He was forty-five.