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Forrest Balman

Professor Carlson

April 12 2016

Mus 23

Wes Montgomery: Redefining Jazz Guitar

In response to an interview with Jazz Journal, a periodical that follows the lives and

works of the present, Joe Pass, a prominent Jazz guitarist who said, “Wes Montgomery. There

really hasn’t been anything new since then. There have really only been three real innovators on

the guitar - Wes, Charlie Christian, and Django Reinhardt” (Jazz Journal). Few guitarists in the

entire history of Jazz music have played as much of an impactful role than Wes Montgomery.

With his eclectic style, and unique take on the instrument that provided a fresh outlook on Jazz

guitar as a whole, Montgomery’s heydey is still regarded as the most influential and innovative

period in Jazz guitar since the era of Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. With twenty-six

solo albums, and fourteen collaborative works, Montgomery remains one of the most recorded

Jazz guitarists in the history of the genre. With a name benounced to Jazz enthusiasts, and

aspiring guitarists alike, Wes Montgomery’s technical proficiency is legendary and the musical

mark his works have made on Jazz will remain classic and timeless examples of masterfully

exquisite guitar work.

John Leslie Montgomery was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, on March 23rd 1923. Being

brought up in a family with musical talent, Montgomery fell into the order of a musical lifestyle

rather quickly. Wes had two brothers, who were also musically inclined. Monk, who played the

bass, and Buddy, who played the piano. Of the three, Wes showed the most natural talent with
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his instrument. At the time, Wes played the four string tenor guitar. Although comparable to the

modern guitar in sound and range of pitch, the four string tenor guitar differs from the standard

contemporary guitar in number of strings, and tuning system. It wasn’t until the age of 20 that

Montgomery would pick up his first six string guitar that would become what he is most known

for today. In terms of his own influence, Montgomery drew inspiration from, namely, two

prolific guitar players of the jazz era.

The first of them was Charlie Christian. Christian is often regarded as the first influential

electric guitar player. Hailing from Oklahoma City, Christian packed a tremendous punch into

his unique and revolutionary virtuosic style of playing. Although a key musician in the Jazz

genre, Christian’s technique, sound, and mechanical prowess would be idolized and imitated by

guitarists outside of the Jazz tradition. Christian’s rise to popularity as a guitarist was by means

of performance in Benny Goodman, the nationally acclaimed “King of Swing’s,” ensemble.

Prior to Christian’s contributions to Jazz, the guitar served mainly as a harmonic instrument with

not as significant of a lead role in comparison to the trumpet or saxophone. This was namely due

to the fact that the acoustic strings could not compete with the sheer volume of the brass and reed

instruments of the standard ensemble (​Jazz Musician, Charlie Christian​ Duke.edu). One of

Christian’s biggest contributions, in terms of style, that is evident in Montgomery’s playing is the

use of solos that utilize a single note to outline the harmonic structure of a piece. According to

Jeff Aarons, Jazz Guitar Online columnist, “Christian was was one of the first jazz guitarists to

creatively execute fluid single note lines that defined the melodic harmonic points and extended

harmonies” (​Charlie Christian,​ Aarons). Prior to Christian’s incorporation of electric guitar into

the Jazz band ensemble, single not riffs and solos were drowned out by the volume of the band.
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Christian was also one of the first innovators of bebop, which Montgomery helped to truly refine

in his own career as a guitarist.

The second, but equally noteworthy, influence of Wes Montgomery’s style is Django

Reinhardt. Born Jean-Baptiste Reinhardt in Liberchies, Belgium, in 1910, Reinhardt was born

into the nomadic gypsy lifestyle. Having had experience with other instruments, namely the

violin and the banjo, at age 13, Reinhardt became exposed to the guitar. Reinhardt, one of the

most influential guitar players of all time, became synonymous with the style Gypsy Jazz.

Obviously, having drawn influences from the emerging Jazz craze of the United States of the late

twenties and early thirties, Reinhardt began to implement techniques and stylistic characteristics

of the Roma Gypsy music he had grown accustomed to in his own life. Unfortunately, early in

his career, Reinhardt was part of a tragic accident that resulted in the crippling of his third and

fourth fingers. Making guitar playing seemingly impossible for the average musician, Reinhardt

had to adapt to his new set of circumstances and create a fingering system that allow him to play

runs using his two stronger fingers (​Django Reinhardt​ Bio.com). Perhaps the technique that

appears most prevalent in Montgomery’s sound that was inspired by Reinhardt is the use of

unique and extended harmonies. Reinhardt, out of necessity, had to voice chords in an efficient

enough way in order to accommodate his weaker fingers. Reinhardt had to play harmony that

utilized a unique dissonance that did not resemble any sound in the Jazz tradition up until his

contribution. Aaron writes, “Django employed ​chords​ that were not used at that time. He was

able to finger just about any chord voicing he needed using his two curled in fingers to fret notes

on the upper two strings B and E, while his two healthy fingers handled the mid and bass strings.

Unused strings were often muted” (​Django Reinhardt​, Aarons). These chords gave a unique
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chromatic twist on the extended harmonies of popular Jazz. Reinhardt, to this day, remains the

most influential European Jazz musician, and contributed many innovations that allowed

guitarists, such as Wes Montgomery to pioneer their unique sounds.

Wes Montgomery, in his relatively short life, contributed several wonderful and

noteworthy works. Montgomery’s recording career started with his two brothers, Monk and

Buddy. Despite not giving the critical acclaim that his later albums would eventually yield, his

early recording career at Riverside records allowed him to get his foot in the door as far as a

recording contract is concerned. After parting ways, musically, with his two brothers,

Montgomery began recording some of his more reputable works. During his time at Riverside

records, Montgomery recorded: ​Fingerpickin’,​ ​Far Wes ​(Which modern guitarist, Eric Johnson,

wrote an homage to matching the title of the album “Far Wes”),​ ​and ​The incredible Jazz Guitar

of Wes Montgomery​ (Gleason “Wes Montgomery). It was at this point that Montgomery’s work

was able to be distributed to Jazz and guitar enthusiast communities outside of the

Indiana-sphere. Montgomery continued to record and release over a dozen more singles with

Riverside records before eventually switching over to another, more reputable recording label for

Jazz at the time, Verve Records. Montgomery took his playing in an entirely different direction

when recording at Verve Records. Not only did he begin to take popular songs of the time and

arrange them to be Jazz masterpieces, but he did so with his unique and eclectic guitar technique

and style (​The Unmistakable Jazz Guitar​ NPR.org). While at Verve Montgomery release many

noteworthy records, including ​Movin’ Wes,​ ​California Dreamin’​, ​Tequila,​ ​and Willow Weep for

Me.​ His music began to deviate from the Bebop tradition, in a sense, because of his music’s

newfound pop tunefulness, taking a page from the books of his pop contemporaries Aretha
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Franklin and The Mamas and the Papas. Nevertheless, Montgomery’s iconic style prevailed

throughout all of his recording endeavors, showcasing his unique and, in modern context,

inspirational technique and prowess on the guitar.

Arguably more important than the contributions he made to standard Jazz repertoire,

Montgomery’s contributions to Jazz guitar technique and style have inspired many guitarists in

and out of the Jazz tradition. The first massive contribution to guitar playing style that

Montgomery made was his thumb-playing technique. Because utilizing the entirety of one’s

hand was the norm of Jazz plucking at the time, Montgomery opted to used the side of his thumb

to strike the strings (Jazz.com “Wes Montgomery”). Despite being technically impractical in

some contexts, the impact this change made on guitar wasn’t to how guitar players approach

hitting the strings, but rather the sound that the guitar creates. If you listen to Montgomery’s

predecessors, the guitar, as an instrument that takes solos, utilizes a tone that has a characteristic,

almost banjo-esque twang (​The Softer Side of Genius,​ Woodard). This is, perhaps, due to the

fact that amplification technology at the time wasn’t strong enough for the guitar to ring out loud

enough to overpower the rest of the ensemble. However, spanning into the 1960’s and 1970’s,

the dominance of the guitar in Rock music had led to an improvement in amplification, allowing

for guitarists to be far more methodical in choosing their tone. Montgomery’s classic deep and

subtle, almost muted tone, comes from a combination of neck pickup and thumb playing. This

sound is what most modern jazz guitarists aim for.

Another, and probably his most influential contribution to jazz music as a whole is

Montgomery’s signature octave style of playing melodies. Montgomery’s approach to the guitar

followed in the footsteps of bebop greats such as Charlie Parker and Charlie Christian, however
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in writing and arranging melodies in the bebop style, Montgomery found that playing the note

and the octave directly above creates a unique and dynamic sound (“The King of Octaves”

Warren Sirota). Montgomery’s octave style of arranging melodies was a tremendous

development in the guitar playing community. Taking a melody and playing it over two octaves

in compliance with his unique tone created a sort of atmospheric quality to his playing. It was as

if he was accompanying his own playing at the same time. Playing with the added octave is

something heard in countless works since its origination in Montgomery’s own practicing. This

style has become a necessity of the modern guitar player’s repertoire because of Montgomery’s

contribution to guitar.

There is no doubt that Montgomery continues to be one of the most revered guitar players

in history. His contributions to not only Jazz, but technical guitar as well have been passed on to

new guitar players several generations after his passing. Wes Montgomery was an important

guitar player in terms of the Jazz tradition timeline. If one were to examine Montgomery’s

predecessor’s, Christian and Reinhardt, one would see that, despite their contributions being

great, Jazz guitar would be relatively stagnant if it weren’t for Montgomery’s influence on the

overall style. Montgomery gave Jazz guitar the cool and nuanced sound that it lacked when

played by the greats of the 1920’s. Montgomery helped usher jazz guitar into the modern era

with style and finesse, and without him, perhaps Jazz guitar would still remain sounding like that

of the 1920’s.
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Works Cited

Bowden, Dan. ​Wes Montgomery, the Early Years​. S.l.: Mel Bay Pubns, 1997. Print.

"Charlie Christian." ​Jazz Guitar Online: Free Jazz Guitar Lessons, Tabs, Chords & Charts.​ N.p.,

n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.

"Charlie Christian--Jazz Musician." ​Charlie Christian--Jazz Musician.​ N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May

2016.

"Django Reinhardt." ​Bio.com​. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 17 May 2016.

"Django Reinhardt." ​Jazz Guitar Online: Free Jazz Guitar Lessons, Tabs, Chords & Charts.​

N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.

Gleason, John. "Wes Montgomery." ​Nxtbook.com.​ Guitar Player Magazine, n.d. Web.

"In The Beginning." ​Wesmontgomery.com.​ N.p., n.d. Web.

"The Chronicles of Oklahoma." ​Chronicles of Oklahoma.​ N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.

"The Once-Thriving Jazz Scene Of ... Indianapolis?" ​NPR.​ NPR, n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.

"The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum." ​Charlie Christian Biography.​ N.p., n.d. Web. 04

May 2016.

"Welcome to Jazz.com." ​Montgomery, Wes (John Leslie) – Jazz.com.​ N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May

2016.

"Wes Montgomery - The King of Octaves." ​Wes Montgomery, The King of Octaves. How to

Achieve the Sound of Wes Montgomery.​ N.p., n.d. Web. 04 May 2016.

"Wes Montgomery: 'The Unmistakable Jazz Guitar'" ​NPR.​ NPR, n.d. Web. 17 May 2016.
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Woodard, Josef. "Jazz Articles: Wes Montgomery: The Softer Side of Genius - By Josef

Woodard - Jazz Articles." ​Jazz Articles: Wes Montgomery: The Softer Side of Genius - By

Josef Woodard - Jazz Articles​. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 May 2016.