Jazz Guitar Heroes

Wes Montgomery was truly one of the first real jazz guitarists that I heard. Where I grew up in Binghamton, New York, I didn't have access to record stores that carried much jazz. And I didn't have the money as a kid to buy a lot of records. But our public library had a decent collection of jazz records which became my early source for learning the music. In the collection of recordings that were present in the library there was the Wes Montgomery record "Smoking at the Half Note." When I discovered "Smoking at the Half Note" I felt that I had heard something that was beyond anything I had every heard on the guitar. The touch, the feel, the groove, the blues the octaves, the chords. It was all so incredible. I had to live with this record. The way it worked in the library is that you could only check out the record for 14 days and you couldn't renew it. And you could only take out I think 8 records. So every two weeks I would go to the library and check out 8 records. One of these 8 records was always "Smoking at the Half Note." When I returned the records I would then walk to the books on the second floor and pretend to be browsing. From this vantage point I could look over the circulation desk. I would watch as they went through the process of checking the record back in and then returning it to the stacks. Once that was completed I would go back downstairs and take out the recording. After about a year I think they caught on to my ways.

This solo is performed in the sound and spirit of Wes Montgomery. Make sure you check out the progression of this solo as it moves from single note ideas to octaves, then to a chord solo. The solo itself is performed over the chord changes to the Wes Montgomery classic tune "Four on Six."

This tune is one of my favorites of Wes. The performance contains a number of ideas that were influenced by Wes's single note playing. There are also some solid octave and chord solo ideas here for you to pick up on that you can start to incorporate into your own style of playing.

As we break this solo down in detail I think the most effective approach is to identify and separate the three different sections: single note ideas, octave, and chord solo. Each of these areas need a different kind of attention. I would also encourage you to listen to this while studying the solo from "The Incredible Jazz Guitar" on the Riverside label from 1960 and his solo from "Smoking at the Half Note" from 1965 on the Verve label. This will give you even more context to the material here.

Kenny Burrell was one of the first legends of jazz guitar that I heard live in concert. I had heard his recordings of "Midnight Blue", his work as a sideman on Jimmy Smith's recording "Back at the Chicken Shack," and of course his work on John Coltrane's recordings "The Cat" and "Kenny Burrell & John Coltrane."All of these recordings had a tremendous impact on me. The fusing of hard bop language with a deep affinity of the blues was very infectious. Kenny Burrell's approach to playing is both approachable and sophisticated. It was the presence of these two elements that had such an impact on me as a player.

This solo is insipired by the guitar language of Kenny Burrell. It is based on his tune "Freight Trane" which is a bebop blues tune which is from his recording with John Coltrane entitled "Kenny Burrell and John Coltrane."