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I agree, nothing to be ashamed of in not finding out about Wes until recently. I think many of us are guilty of staying relatively isolated in our music tastes in early years but then find a wealth of musicians and styles as we mature. I think a great way to "discover" other musicians is to use something like iTunes Store - select someone you like and then follow the trail of "People who bought this often like....." see where it leads and listen to loads of samples to see what you like or don't like. I know I found numerous people I hadn't heard of or considered before using this method.

Brian

The thing is you have discovered him and are now enjoying his music. Now then, youngsters who have never heard of Hank and the Shads (and I've met 'em ), that's a different matter altogether!

Wes got a wee bit of flak from the jazz purists when he started recording with an orchestra, but it's highly listenable as is his early stuff too. His brother Monk was one of the first to adopt the Fender bass instead of the acoustic double bass.

Kenny Burrell is also worth a listen. Another melodic player, and check out the late Joe Pass.

George

A guitarist I heard in the USA a few years ago: Jonathan Kreisberg (who regularly tours the UK and Europe).

Hear this and die of sheer lyrical ecstasy.

And no, there isn't another guitarist on the stage, out of shot. It's JK playing all the guitar parts at once:

Quote from Beat Instrumental 1966, Feb no 34:

"Session Men try the Charlie Christian Pickup.
Many of the country`s leading session guitarists have started to use the famous Charlie Christian bar pickup. Anyone thinking of buying one himself though, will find it rather expensive. Selmer report that these pickups can only be bought with a Gibson electric jumbo guitar, so be warned".

To my knownledge, Gibson never manufactured such a model. Was Selmer refering to..a J-160 ?

Barney Kessel, whom Jim N rightly pointed out as a favorite guitarist of Hanks, used this bar pickup extensively.

Pol

I liked a few of Barney kessel tracks but wasn't too keen on Charlie Christian.
Earlier today i sat down to try and learn one or two Wes tracks on the CD i got today but i had to stop after about 15 minutes as my thumb was red raw, i never really played much using my thumb and i couldn't keep up anyway!
Now i know why Mark King wears gaffer tape on his thumb when he plays bass!

Pol wrote:Quote from Beat Instrumental 1966, Feb no 34:

"Session Men try the Charlie Christian Pickup.
Many of the country`s leading session guitarists have started to use the famous Charlie Christian bar pickup. Anyone thinking of buying one himself though, will find it rather expensive. Selmer report that these pickups can only be bought with a Gibson electric jumbo guitar, so be warned".

To my knownledge, Gibson never manufactured such a model. Was Selmer refering to..a J-160 ?

Barney Kessel, whom Jim N rightly pointed out as a favorite guitarist of Hanks, used this bar pickup extensively.

Pol

Well, the story was simply wrong (especially the reference to a "jumbo", when what was meant was a deep-body archtop).

Gibson had made the Charlie Christian pickup available as a retro-fitment some years earlier and it was still available in the very late 1960s.

The only stockist in the United Kingdom was Ivor Mairants in Rathbone Place, London, and the pickup could be bought there for 50 gns (£52.50) or supplied fitted (with all the routing and drilling of an archtop guitar necessary for installation) for 100 guineas (£105).

To put £52.50 in perspective for 1966, the average gross male industrial earnings was then about £17 a week. A gallon of petrol cost about five shillings and a CC pickup, straight off Ivor's shelf, would have cost about the same as 209 gallons of petrol - or, in today's prices, about £1,120. Yes: one thousand, one hundred and twenty pounds (and double that if it was fitted to the customer's guitar).

There have been reports of customers referring to archtops as "jumbos". In fact, it is sometimes said that the Beatles ordered their J-160E guitars sight-unseen as single-pickup jumbos because that was what Tony Sheridan had termed his own single-pickup Gibson ES-175 in Hamburg. The 160E, though, was (and still is) fitted with a P90 pickup with adjustable polepiece screws.

JimN wrote:


Well, the story was simply wrong (especially the reference to a "jumbo", when what was meant was a deep-body archtop).

The 160E, though, was (and still is) fitted with a P90 pickup with adjustable polepiece screws.

Thanks Jim for sorting it out. My thoughts about a possibly reference to the J-160E, was based barely only on the fact that this was the only choice in 1966 if you wanted a Gibson jumbo elecctric flat-top. As you well know, Gibson manufactured earlier, in 1950, another flat-top electric with the same P90 pickup . This model, the CF-100E had been discounted in 1960. I used to own a 1956 CF (Cutaway Florentine) electric in my younger years.

Pol

I bought a CD from Amazon of Wes's called 'The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery', it was only two quid but when i received it the sound quality wasn't great and the last track wasn't present on the CD, track listing was for 8 tracks but there was only 7 on the disc, mind you it was from Pickwick so i should have known better, still for two quid i suppose i shouldn't grumble.
I'm now collecting some of his albums on CD, i have four so far and have not been disappointed in any of them.

Fenderman wrote:
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?

You could also listen to Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell
Regards Dave