With the recent release of In The Beginning, a double-album set on Resonance Records that features newly discovered 'live' recordings and studio sessions, we ask: what makes Wes Montgomery so special? Why is he still relevant today? And what can all guitarists, regardless of style, learn from this humble genius?
Throughout the 1930s and 40s, guitarists were faced with a major challenge: how to adapt the 'language' of jazz on to the fretboard. From its seedy beginnings in the Red Light District of New Orleans at the turn of the 20th century, jazz had been a horn players' music. So much of the basic vocabulary centred around the way trumpets, saxophones, clarinets and trombones slid, bent, glissed and sustained their phrases.
For years, the humble guitar languished in the rhythm section, where it thumped along with the bass and drums while horn players wailed out front.
Early solo pioneers such as Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson and Django Reinhardt paved the way for the single-string genius of Charlie Christian who, blessed with the new-fangled electric guitar, was able to forge its place in the 'front line' of jazz ensembles.
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