Anyone heard of this guy

[Fenderman]

A few nights ago i was trawling through Youtube (as you do) and i came across a jazz guitarist called Wes Montgomery, i played a few tracks and was knocked out by his playing, i never knew someone could play so fast using their thumb.
I've listened to more of his albums, some are hit and miss but his earlier works seem better, i'm surprised i'd never came across this guy before as he influenced a lot of people who became guitarists later on, since Hank likes jazz i wonder if he likes him?
He died a long time ago which was a shame, he was quite young too.

[noelford]

I'm surprised you hadn't heard of Wes Montgomery before - I must be older than I thought!

[roger bayliss]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wes_Montgomery

All you need to know. He was very influential

[Mikey]

He has to be among the great jazz guitarists.

[Martin Page]

One of the most famous jazz guitarists - ever. There was an article on him recently in Guitarist magazine.

[dave robinson]

Yes indeed very well known, Hank himself named Wes as an inspiration in an article I read in a magazine years ago.

[Fenderman]

I honestly had never heard of the man till about 3 days ago! I feel so ashamed! I'm 41 , in fact it's my birthday today (well, yesterday now, the 28th)
I've ordered a CD of his tracks from Amazon, should be here in a day or two, can anyone recommend any other jazz guitarists i should check out?

[JimN]

You could give Barney Kessel a listen. Barney is one of the two main guitarists cited by Hank as a favourite (in the early 1960s). The other was Chet Atkins.

Try some Barney (on a tune played live by The Shadows) at:

[JimN]

You could also try the first popular electric jazz guitarist, Charlie Christian.

Here he is with the Benny Goodman Sextet c. 1941 (persevere at least until you have heard the guitar solo, and that's Count Basie on sparing piano):

[noelford]

I honestly had never heard of the man till about 3 days ago! I feel so ashamed! I'm 41 , in fact it's my birthday today (well, yesterday now, the 28th)
I've ordered a CD of his tracks from Amazon, should be here in a day or two, can anyone recommend any other jazz guitarists i should check out?

Nothing to be ashamed of. In fact I envy you in a way because making serendipitous discoveries like this, at whatever age, is one of life's delights! I often think that there are things I would like to wipe from my memory just to be able to enjoy the pleasure of discovering them again.