Wes Montgomery is an iconic guitarist – a titan in the jazz genre. Boasting a style as unique and inimitable as Django Reinhardt or Jimi Hendrix, he burst upon the scene in 1960 and immediately redefined the sound and attitude of modern jazz guitar.
Montgomery’s records for the Riverside label inspired countless musicians before he moved to Verve in ’66, when he widened his sphere of influence with Goin’ Out of My Head to reach a mainstream audience. His affect is unquestionable; Benson, Martino, Metheny, Klugh, Remler, and Whitfield, as well as fusion guitarists Coryell, Scofield, and Ritenour bear marks of the Montgomery sound and style. Moreover, his impact on rock players includes Carlos Santana, Pete Townshend, Robbie Krieger, Eric Johnson, Andy Summers, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Full House, from the height of his jazz period, is one of his most-celebrated albums. Though jazz albums in the era were largely “live in the studio” blowing sessions, the band’s chemistry and excitement before a live crowd make it a masterpiece.
Montgomery was renowned for the warm, full sound produced with his thumb, which he used instead of a pick. He had a large callous (“corn”) that contributed to the attack and was double-jointed, which facilitated quick alternating strokes, though he predominately favored down strokes. Throughout his career, he preferred Gibson L-5 archtops with very heavy strings (.014-.058). By ’62, he’d acquired a sunburst L-5CES with a Florentine cutaway, PAF pickups, and compensated ebony bridge. He plugged into the new piggyback Fender Bandmaster (pictured on the back of Full House).
Montgomery is recognized for his parallel-octave melodies, which became the prominent identifier of his later pop style, typified by “Tequila,” “California Dreaming,” and “Windy.” In the early ’60s, he used octaves in conjunction with single notes and chord textures to develop a three-tier improvisation approach, progressing logically from single-note lines to octaves then block chords to produce a sense of form and direction in his solos. He took the idea further with improvised passages epitomizing the call-and-response phraseology of the blues or alluding to the chord punches of big bands. This formula was pursued regularly in his Riverside and Verve periods, and is particularly apparent on the Full House track “Cariba.”
“Full House” is a career defining piece that captured and redefined the jazz waltz. Played in a Latin feel for intro and head, the tune exploits an animated 3/4 swing groove for solos. This excerpt (1:41-2:04) presents Wes’ ideas over the bridge’s cycle progression and verse vamp sections, depicting two sides of his musical personality. Note his use of sequential patterns over Bbm7-Eb7 and chord outlining albeit with melodic surprises over the modulating changes. His melodies over the Fm-Bb7 vamp emphasize the marriage of modal extended melodies and blues licks. Wes’ attractive intervallic lines are found in measures 8 and 16, key spots in the progression, adding another dimension to his improvisations. The fast ascending arpeggio motif in 19-20 is a signature sound that occurs in many of his minor-mode flights.
In 1962, Wes won his second readers’ and critics’ polls in Downbeat and he was rapidly ascending in status, which warranted a live album. He had no regular working band, so logistics were daunting. Orrin Keepnews, head of Riverside, devised a touring schedule to coincide with a live recording; Wes played Midwest and East Coast dates in January and February with the Montgomery Brothers, then appeared in Atlanta in March. In April, he played the Tsubo coffeehouse in Berkeley, then in May joined John Coltrane at the Jazz Workshop in San Francisco. By that point, the Bay Area was his second home, and Tsubo offered a particularly relaxed, conducive environment and suitable acoustics.
Keepnews noted that Miles Davis was booked at the Black Hawk with a stellar rhythm section from Kind of Blue – Wynton Kelly (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Jimmy Cobb (drums). He arranged a recording session accordingly for Monday, June 25, when the trio had a free night. Though Miles himself balked, his refusal to pay the band on its day off allowed them to record with Wes. Rehearsals were sandwiched between June 22 and 24 and the group was joined by tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin, who was also in town for the Jazz Workshop and rose to the occasion and was declared a star in his own right. The quintet quickly developed an intuitive and sympathetic working relationship and recorded two 55-minute sets of the same tunes that, when pared down to the best takes and LP length, became Full House.
Wally Heider was recruited to oversee recording and the tracks were mixed live on an Ampex two-track deck; turned-away fans from the crowd were treated to a preview in the parking lot during playback. Heider’s skill and Tsubo’s attentive, enthused audience (club noises were minimal compared to Smokin’ at the Half Note) resulted in one of the sonically best live jazz albums of all time.
The program and content captured the growing dominance of the hard-bop style. Decidedly groove-oriented and with less-blistering tempos, it was earthier and simpler, melodically and harmonically, than previous bebop incarnations. It frequently referenced minor modes with elements of gospel and R&B, and borrowed liberally from the blues to pave the way for soul jazz – the natural outgrowth of earlier styles. It was an aggressive East Coast response to the more cerebral, sedate West Coast “cool jazz.”
Wes’ solo in “Cariba” is one of his finest. He enters at 5:40 after Griffin and builds 11 inspired blues choruses, applying modal and hard-bop shadings as well as customary blues elements. Choruses 4-6 contain definitive examples of his octave style; after his segue from single-note improvisation at 6:27 [A]. He plays Fm7 arpeggios over Bb7–implying typical extensions, outlines an exotic substitution, Bm7-E7, to approach the IV chord Eb7, and then proceeds to mix Bb minor pentatonic and major/minor blues sounds. Wes’ chord work is highly rhythmic, riff-based and so groove conscious it borders on funk. Case in point is the passage at 8:00 (B). Here, he locks into a catchy figure over Bb7 that epitomizes soul-jazz. More varied and colorful jazz voicings are heard over Eb7-Bb7. Note Wes’ trademark use of diminished chords (as symmetrical inversions and chromatic runs) in [B] measures 5-6.
“Full House,” the album’s opener, was the eighth tune recorded. Wes’ jazz-waltz original poses a brief Latin-tinged modal intro riff (also used as the outro) against a bouncy 3/4 vamp groove (Fm7-Bb7) in the main theme (:17). His inherent blues tendencies, pentatonic/hexatonic references, and funky syncopations enhance the tune’s melodic and rhythmic aspects while suiting the underlying, slightly ambiguous F-minor modality. An elegant bridge (:47) supplies contrast with more-defined tonality (cycle-of-fourths progression) and stop-time rhythms. Wes’ solo (1:09) ushers in a related 3/4 swing feel and smoothly progresses from elegant modal/bebop lines to octaves, first as rhythmic punctuations (3:03) and then full extended phrases (3:18-3:57).
“I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face,” a popular Broadway tune from Lerner & Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” became a contemporary standard recorded by countless jazz artists and served as a traditional ballad highlighting Wes’ chord-melody playing. Accompanied by a nearly inaudible rhythm section of bass and drums, he renders a beautiful, understated chordal reading of the verse and chorus sections, highlighting and expanding the unusual changes with his own harmonic variations and substitutions. A striking point of interest typical of Wes’ imaginative tangents is heard in his digression in the eight-bar intro and outro, evoking a haunting Spanish mood with idiomatic droning open-string chords.
“Blue ’N’ Boogie” is a rhythmically active 12-bar blues penned by Dizzy Gillespie. Its inclusion personifies Wes’ jazz-blues predilections and acknowledgement of bebop forebears with its riff-based head (stated in unison and harmony by Montgomery and Griffin) and lengthy virtuosic improvisations of single notes and octaves. Encouraged by their performance in the first set, they increase tempo from 108 to 132 bpm (cut time) in Take 2; simplifying the decision-making procedure reflected in the album’s final playlist. Virtually every track was chosen from the second set and deemed superior, after the first set warm-up. A few choruses of Wes’ solo were edited out for time on the original LP but restored to full length in CD reissues.
“Cariba” was a highlight of the milestone date. Montgomery’s composition juxtaposes a bright Latin-jazz feel on a 12-bar blues in Bb and imbues it with an F-minor modal feel, underscoring the minor-conversion practice emblematic of hard bop. He and Griffin play the theme together (Montgomery in minor-mode block chords and octaves) over the straightforward I-IV-V changes. Wes’ solo is a telling demonstration of his ability to build a moving and effective jazz statement, so driving it borders on Latin rock with improvisations progressing from three choruses of single-note lines to five choruses of octave melodies, transitioning to a chorus of mixed octaves and chord punches, and finally, two choruses of block-chord phrases.
“Come Rain or Come Shine,” was the opener of the sets but is fifth in the LP running order. Harold Arlen’s standard has been a favorite jazz number for years (even covered by Ray Charles and James Brown) and provided an ideal vehicle for Wes’ melodic inventiveness. The faster and more-assured second take was preferred; the first was included in the ’87 CD reissue and provides interesting comparisons. Montgomery plays the simple theme with numerous rhythmic and melodic bop variations; adding octaves to the last eight bars before handing it over to Griffin. Montgomery re-enters at 1:56 and plays one of his most-definitive solos, two 32-bar choruses in single-note bop lines, and two choruses in octaves over a propulsive hard-swing groove enhanced by Cobb’s superb brush work.
“Come Rain or Come Shine,” the classic American Songbook standard, received new life in Wes’ hands. The second half of the first chorus (2:15-2:34) finds him cultivating a number of innovative modern-jazz sounds that are sonic identifiers of his expansion of bebop. Prime among these are the hard-bop minor-conversion substitutions over common changes: Abm7 (hexatonic) over Fm7-Bb7 (measure 1-2), Dm9 and Abm7 over G7 (8-10), Ebm6 over F7 (11-13), and a more-exotic modality over A7 in 7-8. Wes neatly offsets the complexity of these phrases with closure on C blues over Am7b5-D7-Ab7-G7-Cm in 14-16. Note his double-stop riffs and straight pentatonic melody in this section.
“S.O.S.” Wes’ uptempo modern-jazz original, is the track that most closely projects the bebop lineage of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. This is heard immediately in an intricate main theme that features spirited interaction, fast, tight unison lines rendered by Montgomery and Griffin, and charging solos by both. The title refers to friend and Bay Area drummer Scotty Oliver Scott. The third take was chosen over the second (implying an initial abortive first exists somewhere, a conundrum considering only two shows were recorded) and the tempo increased from 92 to 100 bpm (cut time).
“Born to be Blue,” Mel Torme’s atmospheric blues ballad, was unissued until CD releases. The arrangement’s problematic ending and Kelly’s playing in the first take were considered inadequate, but were immaculate on the second, yet the song was omitted from the LP for time reasons. In retrospect, both of Montgomery’s performances of the tune were so strong and soulful (and contained some of his finest improvisation) that the decision seems arbitrary today, particularly in light of his cadenza (6:49-7:10) not heard in the earlier take. He overcame the disorganized ending by injecting his improvisational prowess into the second try. A telling example of a jazz player’s quick arranging on the bandstand, Wes re-thought the coda and opted to play a solo guitar cadenza (6:47) of single-note improvisation and chord-melody phrases on the second.
Released in November ’62, Full House was promise fulfilled. All expectations of Montgomery’s vaunted artistry and growing supremacy were realized with the album, which became a beacon in the jazz world, particularly among guitarists. The original LP (the only intentional live album of his career) contained a mere six tracks, while the ’87 remastered CD offered three additional pieces – “Born to Be Blue” and first-set takes of “Come Rain or Come Shine” and “S.O.S.” The 1992 box set Wes Montgomery: The Complete Riverside Recordings added two more alternate takes with fully restored sections,“Born to Be Blue” and “Cariba.” The Complete Full House Recordings (2023) celebrated his centennial with a 14-song program including first takes of “Blue ’N’ Boogie” and “S.O.S.” and Wes’ fully restored solo on “Full House.” Posthumously issued concert recordings reveal Montgomery continued to include “Cariba” in live broadcasts from the Half Note (February, ’65 with Wynton Kelly’s trio). He played “Full House” with his own quartet routinely during a European tour of England, Belgium, France, Holland, and Germany that spring. In April (Paris with guest Johnny Griffin), he included “Blue ’N’ Boogie” (segued into “West Coast Blues”) along with “Full House” to revisit and reignite the potent guitar/sax chemistry on Full House.
Wolf Marshall is the founder and original Editor-In-Chief of GuitarOne magazine. A respected author and columnist, he has been influential in contemporary music education since the early 1980s. His latest book is Jazz Guitar Course: Mastering the Jazz Language. Others include 101 Must-Know Rock Licks, B.B. King: the Definitive Collection, and Best of Jazz Guitar. A list credits can be found at wolfmarshall.com.
This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2025 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
