(Hard Bop) Wes Montgomery - Twisted Blues - 1965, FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

Although the guitar was the most widely used instrument of the blues man, the jazz guitar was not developed by a black man. The first major guitarist in jazz was Eddie Lang, an Italian-American from Philadelphia. His recordings with violinist Joe Venuti are among his best-known, presenting him as a musician firmly rooted in European harmony, which can be explained by his starting his musical career in the pop field. Lang influenced Django Reinhardt deeply, who was a European by birth. The effect was that the guitar became the most European-oriented instrument in jazz, together to a large extent with the piano.
Eddie Lang was a great technician, undoubtedly the best of his contemporaries on the guitar, and therefore he impressed them- above all Django Reinhardt, who adopted a considerable amount of lines from Lang. From Lang, through Reinhardt and later Charlie Christian (who was a major contributor to the bop movement) the main line of jazz guitar playing runs to Remo Palmieri, Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Jim Hall and Kenny Burrell. Of this list of bop guitarists Kenny Burrell and Charlie Christian are the only blacks.
But to be sure: there have been other excellent black jazz guitarists. Lonnie Johnson was one blues player who often worked in jazz contexts, recording with Armstrong, Ellington, and Lang: Johnson called playing with the latter his greatest musical experience. Al Casey was another fine black guitarist, who made a mark with Fats Waller. Freddie Green, who became legendary with the Count Basie Orchestra, was considered to be the finest rhythm section guitarist of his time. And last but not least, there was Wes Montgomery who made a major reputation in jazz before his early death in the 1960s. Critics generally consider Wes Montgomery the most important and influential jazz guitarist after Charlie Christian.
Wes Montgomery (1923-1968} was born in Indianapolis. He began to teach himself the guitar
about 1943 and soon played in local bands. He toured and recorded with Lionel Hampton in the late 1940s. In 1955 he joined the Montgomery-Johnson Quintet and recorded his first extended solos while playing in several groups with his brothers. Monk and Buddy Montgomery. In 1959 Wes organized his own trio with organ and drums and its first recording, called 'The Wes Montgomery Trio', initiated a series of albums for Riverside. On these albums Montgomery is at his best, accompanied by fine rhythm sections including Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Ron Carter, Albert Heath and Louis Hayes. Wes Montgomery finally got the recognition he deserved: soon he began to dominate the Down Beat and Playboy jazz polls. In the 1960s Wes Montgomery started to make more commercial albums, using backing arrangements for string orchestra and large big bands. Although these recordings are not fully representative of his talent, they broadened Montgomery's audience considerably. He won a Grammy Award in 1965 and the album 'A Day In The Life' was the best-selling jazz LP of 1967. Wes Montgomery died -much too young- at the height of his career.
In the 1960s Montgomery also continued to perform live with small groups. This CD features a live concert, recorded in Europe in 1965. The program consists of two jazz standards, one original by Coltrane and three compositions of Montgomery himself, in which we can enjoy. Montgomery's talent to create perfectly shaped phrases with tremendous rhythmic drive. Using his thumb instead of a plectrum, he achieves a soft attack and he is able to free his fingers to play octaves and chordal passages that are still sensational, even to the young guitar players of today's jazz.