This is another standout from the Mellon Jazz Festival performance titled Cantelope Island, written by Herbie Hancock. Great solo by Herbie on piano as well as a stellar performance by Pat. . A marvelous piece of song writing and performance…
The song is Blue by Jack DeJohnette. This group played at the Mellon Jazz Festival in 1990 and made one album and DVD. The playing is inspired, powerful and cutting edge. Metheny says he locked himself in his bedroom for two years with every Wes Montgomery record he could get his hands on…. smart move! Wes’s fluid and lively style was evidently contagious…. enjoy.
This is another one from the Belgium sessions in 1965. I can’t think of another jazz player before or since with such an easygoing, soulful, and fluid way with the guitar…. ego never got in the way with Wes… he was way beyond that! This is short but sweet….!!
These are takes from the a session in 1965 (Belgium). Here’s that Rainy Day…… and Jingles.
Wes often approached solos in a three-tiered manner: He would begin a repeating progression with single note lines, derived from scales or modes; after a fitting number of sequences, he would play octaves for a few more sequences, finally culminating with arpeggiated chords.
The use of octives (playing the same note on two strings one octave apart) for which he is widely known, became known as “the Naptown Sound”. Montgomery was also an excellent “single-line” or “single-note” player, and was very influential in the use of block chords in his solos. His playing on the jazz standard Lover Man is an example of his single-note, octave- and block-chord soloing. (“Lover Man” appears on the Fantasy album The Montgomery Brothers.)
Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with the fleshy part of his thumb, using downstrokes for single notes and a combination of upstrokes and downstrokes for chords and octaves. This technique enabled him to get a mellow, expressive tone from his guitar. George Benson in the liner notes of the Ultimate Wes Montgomery album, wrote, “Wes had a corn on his thumb, which gave his sound that point. He would get one sound for the soft parts, and then that point by using the corn. That’s why no one will ever match Wes. And his thumb was double-jointed. He could bend it all the way back to touch his wrist, which he would do to shock people.”
Well, listen and enjoy one of the greats of jazz guitar….
Don’t miss these guys… Matt Flinner is one of the world’s finest mandolinists, Scott Nygaard is his equal on guitar in every respect, and Sam Bevan is outstanding on acoustic bass. Highly, highly recommended!
Here is a good example of Matt’s playing although with a different group than the trio playing thursday night. This Video is of Matt playing with Frank Vignola and his quintet playing the tune Appel Direct… marvelous!
Flinner-Nygaard-Bevan
Thu. Feb. 28 at 7:30 $10 adv./$12 door seated at DON QUIXOTE’S MUSIC HALL FELTON, CA
Matt Flinner, Scott Nygaard and Sam Bevan (former Grisman and current Joe Craven bassist)
Matt Flinner has made a career out of playing acoustic music in new ways. Starting out as a banjo prodigy who was playing bluegrass festivals before he entered his teens, Flinner later took up the mandolin, won the National Banjo Competition in Winfield, KS in 1990, and won the mandolin award there the following year. Matt is now widely considered one of the hottest and most creative mandolin players on the acoustic scene. His two solo albums for Compass Records, The View from Here and Latitude, both featured bluegrass stalwarts Todd Phillips, David Grier, Stuart Duncan, Jerry Douglas and Darol Anger, and received high critical acclaim. Scott Nygaard is one of the most inventive and original guitarists in the bluegrass/acoustic music scene. His solos, a seamless amalgam of bluegrass, folk, and jazz influences, shift easily from breathtaking virtuosity to soulful melodic musings. “a phenomenally talented stylist”— Downbeat Sam Bevan former Grisman and current Joe Craven bassist. Matt’s Tunes and Video: www.myspace.com/mattflinner Scott’s site: www.scottnygaard.com Sam’s site: www.sambevan.com
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