Wes Montgomery and Three Overmatched Strangers Play Four on Six

Wes always smiles. He was one of the most genial musicians ever. He had a challenging life, so he always seemed glad to be there, no matter where there was. It beat his factory job, and he knew it.

No one springs from Zeus’ head without being an amalgamation of things that came before. That being said, Wes Montgomery came as close to inventing an original method of playing the guitar as anyone I can think of. It’s the sort of thing that’s born of endless work in obscurity for long periods. Wes used to play the guitar after he got home from his blue-collar job, and he didn’t want to wake his wife and many kids. He used his thumb to gently strike the strings instead of a plectrum. It eventually led to half of his unusual sound.

The rest of it was this triptych soloing method. It was also born of playing alone for long periods. First comes a melody. Then he doubles it. Then he plays it passing through block chords. When you hear it, you think, “That’s Wes Montgomery, or someone trying to sound like Wes Montgomery.” He was trying to sound like more than one person at a time, and he didn’t play the piano.

The fellows are Europeans coalesced from whoever’s handy. They’re not prepared for the tempo, or the hole they have to fill when it’s their turn to solo. Wes just smiles. He’s familiar with playing with inferior talent, but soldiering on regardless. He played alone for a long time, and he must have been inferior for a few minutes, surely.

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Like Watching Titian Grind Pigments: Wes Montgomery Arranges A Song In Real Time

Wes Montgomery sounds like he was a nice man, a commodity that can be somewhat hard to find in the music business. He had a wife and lots of kids. He supposedly learned to play guitar when he was already a man. He worked all day in a factory, practiced at night, and strummed the guitar with his thumb instead of a plectrum so he wouldn’t keep his wife and kids up all night. Odd things often make people wonderful. He was well-regarded enough to be touring almost right away, but didn’t like being away from his family, went back home and worked in a factory and played at local places again. Eventually he broke through and became international anyway. I don’t know anyone he’s playing with in the video, but this looks like European TV of some sort. The YouTube comments say they’re Dutch.

He’s a really rare specimen. He obviously always wanted to play in a manner that would be entirely accessible to the general public, but his chops and musicality commanded instant respect, even awe, from even the cool atonal kids. He’s one of those players that never seems to run out of variations on what he knows. He never seems to be repeating himself. Even towards the end of his career, when he did jazzesque versions of profoundly pedestrian pop songs, no one snickered behind his back. Wes Montgomery’s version of Windy might still be a version of Windy, but he never made anything worse. He wasn’t capable of it.

I think he needs to be considered among the most influential jazz musicians ever, because more people paid attention to him, one way or the other, than anyone else.