The jazz-guitar generation that includes John Scofield, Bill Frisell and Pat Metheny owes an incalculable debt to Wes Montgomery, the extraordinary self-taught guitarist from Indianapolis who made complex improvising sound as easy as singing in the shower. Plenty of Montgomery material is available, but his 1950s music with his brothers (bassist Monk and pianist Buddy) is sparsely represented. This double album has been assembled from previously unreleased tracks made available by Buddy’s widow, various long-lost studio tapes, and a 12-minute club recording from Chicago’s C&C Music Lounge in 1957. Naturally, it’s a set for specialists – but a good one, despite the audience noise and variable sound quality, with thorough documentation and a personal reminiscence by Quincy Jones. Wes’s guitar and Johnson’s smoky tenor purr coolly through swingers like Miles Davis’s Four, a laidback How High the Moon and a breathlessly jangling Caravan, and despite the sonic shortcomings of the Chicago live take, All the Things You Are, the guitar sounds edgier, twangier and less cultivated than usual. It leaves a fascinating impression of what this unique musician must have sounded like in the flesh.
