Wes Montgomery Trio - The Wes Montgomery Trio - A Dynamic New Sound
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Artist: Wes Montgomery TrioEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1991-07-01
Music Label: Ojc
Soundtracks:
- 'Round Midnight
- Yesterdays
- End of a Love Affair
- Whisper Not
- Ecaroh
- Satin Doll [Take 5][*]
- Satin Doll
- Missile Blues [Take 5][*]
- Missile Blues
- Too Late Now
- Jingles
Music reviews of The Wes Montgomery Trio - A Dynamic New Sound
Music Review: A Pleasant Debut, the Best Was Yet to Be
Rating: 4 Stars
Wes Montgomery, no questions asked the most gifted jazz guitarist of his and most times (he leaves his idol Charlie Christian far enough behind, and his acolytes have been many without quite equaling his lyricism and taste), was often enough believed to have said he felt most comfortable in the trio format with which he worked on this, his Riverside debut.
I've never seen an exact quote myself, but listening to the albums he did in such a format you can understand why he might have said it. In organist Melvin Rhyne (one of the great underrated players on his instrument in jazz) the master guitarist had a partner who'd been with him long enough in Indianapolis to have been a genuine alter-ego---the two never cross each other up, either when trading off on solos, or working ensemble passages, or playing call-and-response, and they communicate that ease to whichever drummers happen to be working with them at the time. The absolute best performances of the Wes Mongtomery Trio are textbook exercises in how to put the music first and not step on each other's corns doing it.
They begin well enough with this Riverside debut, and especially the leadoff selection, "Round Midnight," which Montgomery plays with such graceful understatement he gives one of the best impressions you'll ever hear of the empty hour the title refers, with Rhyne setting him a calmly melancholy bedding and drummer Paul Parker playing almost ambient brushstrokes that imply nothing short of a lonely walker ambling slowly toward the subway rather than face another night awake in an isolated apartment.
That performance alone makes the price a value, but it's far from the only value. When the trio swings, they do it without pushing (small wonder Montgomery in later years would feel comfortable playing bossa nova selections now and then), even on a selection that isn't quite that gripping in its own right; when they return to balladry, they emphasise the song and its atmosphere over their own formidable selves---something that did as much to make Montgomery's reputation as his techniques did---and when they hit the blues running (always a Montgomery specialty), they prove you don't need to bang to play the blues.
About the only thing you can find wrong with the album is a kind of hesitancy: they seem so anxious to get things right that they seem as though they were caught unawares by their recording engineers. Their otherwise pleasant version of Duke Ellington's "Satin Doll" (both takes), and Montgomery's comfortable original "Missile Blues" (both takes; named for the after-hours joint in Indianapolis where Montgomery held court for several years . . . after long days working as a welder and earlier evenings at other Indianapolis clubs), are good examples of this, though "Missile Blues" manages to convey just enough of that after-hours feeling to save both takes.
But when they're not feeling so shy, they pounce on their material without smothering it, "Ecaroh" being perhaps the best example (it makes you ponder what the master would have done if he'd picked a few more of Horace Silver's repertoire to interpret)---Montgomery plays with perhaps the most confidence other than "Round Midnight," Rhyne plays as though he's just been sprung from two weeks' solitary confinement, and Parker as though he's just glad to be brought along for the romp.
Montgomery's guitar style is already formed fully thanks to all those years making his bones in Indianapolis---he's already one of the great improvisational melodists, whether in single notes, octaves, or chords---and even in this album's few lesser spots he's delivering most of the depth of his talent. (Switching in due course from a Gibson L-4 guitar such as he uses here and on his next couple of albums to the more full L-5 didn't exactly hurt him, either.) If this album began a journey in which he'd find his depth was more than even he thought it might become (he was nothing if not notoriously modest about himself), it was a beginning farther along than even his most staunch admirers might have suspected.
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