'I Remember Wes!'

Today Artist like Larry Carlton, Norman Brown, Count Basic,  Lee Rittenour and others through their projects pay tribute to the great guitar of Wes Montgomery.  Notice comments of others on how Wes influenced them as musicians and listeners.

Wes was an original and you never got the feeling that he was trying to confound anyone - everything that he played felt very comfortable..... I liked the fact that Wes played the whole guitar; beautiful single note lines as well as chord melodies. I love that warm, round sound that he got. He wasn't the first person to use his thumb like a pick....and he wasn't the first to play octaves....but that became a trademark of Wes' style.

What Montgomery brought to the legend and the literature of the guitar is by now so fully incorporated into the body of jazz language that it is difficult to realize the force of its initial impact.  But his relatively brief career left a mark comparable to that of Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt on virtually all guitarists who came after him.

Joe Diorio (Sleeve notes - "I Remember You" - Ram Records)

It has been my great good fortune to be associated with great musicians. Among the greatest was Wes Montgomery, a guitar virtuoso, a creative genius and spiritual human being. We spent many happy moments together playing......I remember a night in Chicago when he stayed at my apartment the night before he was to take some pictures (Playboy Magazine Jazz Poll). He asked me for some guitar polish to clean his guitar so that it would look great for the photos and while he had the guitar outhe asked if I wanted to play a tune with him. Well, we started about 10pm and the next thing I know we played until 4am. I can only say playing with Wes brought me to a new level. It's true that when you rub elbows with the greats you retain some of their greatness. I have never been the same.......Thank God we have his recordings; they are a constant source of inspiration for me.
We will meet again, Wes. I remember you.

Kenny Burrell (Riverside 12 CD set Sleeve Notes)

Musician friends of mine in Detroit and elsewhere mentioned that I had been an influence and inspiration to Wes in terms of his guitar playing. I met him in the late forties when I was not only working in Detroit, but doing a lot of sitting in...Once in a while Wes and his friend Pookie Johnson would drive over from Indianapolis. I didn't realize the significance of this until later.... guitarist and teacher Ivor Mairants pointed out to me in his book on guitarists that Wes had told him that I was one of his influences.....Wow! That made me feel really nice. Wes just listened when he came to Detroit, but we slowly became friends.....One day I got a call from Orrin Keepnews saying that Wes wanted to use my guitar and amplifier to make his debut album. I was somewhat surprised, but then I figured that Wes had asked because he knew me, liked what he had heard on my recordings and figured my Gibson L7....would be OK for him. Whatever the reason, I felt complimented and pleased that he had thought so much of me and my music.

Once in a while we'd get together..... a former manager of mine somewhere has a tape of Wes and me jamming in a room at the Wellington Hotel........In 1963 I was on Wes' album "Fusion". I felt honored that he wanted me on second guitar. While octaves became a signature for him, it's often overlooked that he was one of the pioneers of block chords. I don't know of anyone who played chords in their solos to that extent, so well, and so musically. In my book that is one of his greatest contributions to guitar playing. He was a beautiful person and a musical giant.

Sherman Dantzler (Jazz Hall of Fame )

My Memories of Wes began in 1964 with 'Movin Wes'  followed by 'Bumpin'  and 'Tequila with Bumpin on sunset.' That makes me a late discoverer of Wes Montgomery. However, the music of Wes Montgomery along with Art Blakely (Jazz Messengers), John Coltrane, Donald Byrd, Ahmad Jamal, Grant Green and Miles Davis influenced my early jazz  beginnings during the sixties. For that great start to Jazz, I give credit to all of them and Wes.  Truly, the accomplishments of Wes in such a short period of time makes him extremely  worthy of every Jazz Hall of Fame. Like his influencer Charlie Christian he died too soon, but his music lives on! Yes 'I remember Wes!'

The most modern and hippest guitarist of our time was Wes Montgomery, because of his marvelous use of substitute and relative notes for the harmonic ones......... I'd be lying if I said I wasn't influenced by Wes Montgomery's sound when I play octaves. 

People who love jazz musicians love us when we play what we want to play, and we're starving.  But as soon as you commercialize your sound, as Wes did, the jazz fans and critics are down on you!  Wes told me about this a week before he died.  He was very unhappy and disturbed by this attitude.

Joe Pass (Jazz Journal & Guitar Player )

Who do you feel was the last guitar innovator?: Wes Montgomery. There hasn't been anything really new since then. To me there have only been three real innovators on the guitar - Wes, Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt.  I always thought that Wes was truly a jazz guitar player - even though a lot of people said he was selling out when he started making hit records. To me his phrasing - his lines made him a true jazz player and he still played the same way on those hit records. He was my idea of a REAL player, harmonically, lines, everything......

I remember I was living in Dublin when Wes was appearing at the old Ronnie Scott club in Gerrard Street. I made the pilgrimage across and I went to hear him four nights in a row. I still get goose pimples thinking about it!

Freddie Green (Crescendo '67)

....the man who has meant the most to me in recent years is Wes Montgomery. I'd heard him talked about a lot quite a while ago , and then he made his first record...He really impressed me. Since Charlie Christian, the only completely original soloist is Wes.

He played impossible things on his guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible.

Johnny Griffin  (Saxophonist )

Wes was a marvelous person.  He didn't drink, and he was very difficult about what he ate.  He only ate things that his mother taught him to eat.  He had seven kids.  He was the perfect father.  He spoke slowly, thinking about what he was going to say, never letting out a word he did not want, and all with great humor.

Ralph Gleason (Critic )

Now that Montgomery has attained some measure of commercial success, I wonder if he'll ever record another good album.  Maybe he'll record serious music again under a pseudonym.