🎵 AotW Wes Montgomery GREATEST HITS (A&M SP 4247)

[LPJim]

Side One:
A Day in the Life (5:30)/ Georgia on my Mind (2:42)/ Windy (2:20)/ I say a little Prayer (3:10)/ Road Song (3:50).
Side Two:
Eleanor Rigby (3:00)/ Yesterday (3:25)/ When a man loves a Woman (2:48 )/ Scarborough Fair (4:50)/ Down here on the Ground (3:38 ).

Producer Creed Taylor; Cover photography Guy Webster.

CD availability: expanded to a 20-track set for CLASSICS VOL. 22 (CD 2520) in 1987. Repackaged as GREATEST HITS in 1996, with tracks identical to the 1987 version.

JB

 

[Harry]

For years, this LP served as my only source of Wes Montgomery material (plus a track on FAMILY PORTRAIT). I knew from the sound of this GREATEST HITS album that I would like other Wes Montgomery albums -- it just took forever for me to actually go out and acquire them, but within the past year, I did just that, getting not only all three of his A&M/CTi albums on CD, but finding a copy of CLASSICS 22 as well. I find Wes' albums great to relax to.

It's interesting to note that with this album as AOTW, we actually sort of have two "CTi" titles featured. The liner notes to GREATEST HITS mention Creed Taylor, but there is no "CTi" indication on the album at all, probably because Creed had moved on at the time of this album's release.

One other curiosity is the sound processing. The GREATEST HITS series for the most part (except for TJB) used that HAECO-CSG processing, and usually, whenever re-released on CD, these tracks still have that processing. Not so with the Wes Montgomery CLASSICS disc -- the CSG processing is gone, so they must've gone back to the original masters when reformulating and enhancing the album for CD.

Harry
...playing catch-up, online...

 

[Dave]

Side One:
A Day In The Life (5:30)/ Georgia On My Mind (2:42)/ Windy (2:20)/ I Say A Little Prayer (3:10)/ Road Song (3:50).
Side Two:
Eleanor Rigby (3:00)/ Yesterday (3:25)/ When A Man Loves A Woman (2:48 )/ Scarborough Fair (4:50)/ Down Here On The Ground (3:38 ).

Producer Creed Taylor; Cover photography Guy Webster.

I remember getting this 22 Years after his death. (June 15th 1990). (Also a day, er, night remembered for something else... ) Afterwhich I went after his three Original A&M/CTi Albums; was lucky to get Still Sealed copies of each.

CD availability: Expanded to a 20-track set for CLASSICS VOL. 22 (CD 2520) in 1987. Repackaged as GREATEST HITS in 1996, with tracks identical to the 1987 version.

I've got the Expanded Edition of GREATEST HITS on CD, too. Part of A&M's "Back-Lot Series".

Dave

(...but don't want to get into too much of that...)

Gioccho Adesso: The Carpenters "Make Believe It's Your First Time"/"Look To Your Dreams" A&M ('45') 7-2585

 

[Captain Bacardi]

The liner notes to GREATEST HITS mention Creed Taylor, but there is no "CTi" indication on the album at all, probably because Creed had moved on at the time of this album's release.

I don't have this album, so I'm curious about the liner notes. Are they as long as the notes in the TJB's Greatest Hits? Curious that "Wind Song" isn't included, since it was a hit on the EZ charts, as well as the Bubbling Under charts.


Capt. Bacardi
...awaiting tropical storm Faye online...

 

[Harry]

And, courtesy of the OCR software with my scanner, here is the full text of the liner notes to Wes Montgomery's GREATEST HITS:

He was just getting to enjoy the view from the top, savoring an international surge of recognition to which he had never seriously aspired, when the end came, with a suddenness that stunned the music world of five continents. But it would not be appropriate to wax maudlin over the loss of Wes Montgomery. His personality, like the sound of his guitar, reflected a love of life, an adjustment to the vicissitudes of his profession, the ability to display in each performance whatever emotions were called for by the composition and arrangement; but never a trace of saccharine sentimentality.

John Leslie Montgomery's career was unorthodox in several respects. It began unusually late except for two years on the road with Lionel Hampton's band (1948-50), he remained, until his middle thirties, in almost total obscurity, working in his native Indianapolis. When fame caught up with him the extent of his acceptance was almost overwhelming, particularly by the standards normally applied to a jazz musician. He was at the height of his popularity and had just returned home from a tour when a heart attack ended it all June 15, 1968.

Perhaps "ended it all" is an oversimplification, for Wes' name, far from being forgotten, still heard daily on radio stations; the legacy of his style remains, not only on his own recordings, but the performances of the guitarists beyond number who were inspired by him and do their best emulate his sui generis technique.

In a reversal of Shakespeare's lines, there was no evil done by Wes to live after him, and the good, far from being interred or forgotten, has stayed with us on the best seller charts and on our record players. No pretender has yet occupied his throne with any substantial degree of success.

Wes was in his twentieth year, a married man, before he translated his admiration for Charlie Christian into positive action by taking up the guitar. At first he played in the then accepted manner using a plectrum and playing single-string lines through an amplified guitar. The style that was ultimately to be associated most closely with him came about by accident.

"The neighbors complained that I sounded too loud," he once said, "so I took my guitar to a back room, turned down the amp, gave up the pick, and began just using the fat part of my thumb. At the same time I started to experiment with the idea of playing the melody simultaneously in two registers."

Prominent musicians passing through town would catch Wes at some secluded rendezvous, but the word spread very slowly. In his own view, it was Cannonball Adderley who opened the door for him, by placing an immediate call to a New York record producer. The latter guaranteed him a session sound unheard, on the strength of Cannon's enthusiasm.

Though flattered, Wes felt that the producer should fly out to hear him before committing himself. This was done, and in 1959 Wes' career as a solo recording artist was under way.

The accolades that followed in rapid succession began with his recognition, in the 1960 Down Beat critics' poll, as new star of the year. From then until his death he was to win dozens of similar awards from critics and readers of magazines at home and abroad.

He appeared at jazz concerts in London, Madrid, Brussels, Lugano, San Remo. Everywhere he went, a retinue of admirers displayed their friendship and admiration, still marveling that a soloist unable to read music could have added something so completely fresh and catalytic to the evolution of modern guitar.

Though recognition and a certain security were his from the early 1960s, it was not until he began recording with large orchestras that Wes reached out beyond the jazz fraternity to capture a mass audience. It was in such orchestral contexts that he made his last three albums, all for A&M, all produced by Creed Taylor, who played a vital role in masterminding his development as a major recording artist.

Central also to his role as a style-setter was Don Sebesky. The young arranger provided orchestrations that enhanced Wes' statements without ever obtruding. His gift for building and sustaining mood is typically mirrored in A Day in the Life. Note the shivering remolo of the strings' entry, Wes' gradual transition from Lennon-McCartney to pure, personalized Montgomery.

Georgia, with Herbie Hancock setting the mood, comprises just one chorus and a tag--time enough for Wes to let his own light shine on Hoagy Carmichael's 1930 melody.

Windy, which we all once associated with the Association, is the sort of simple, undemanding melody that leaves Wes free to swing in a jaunty, pretention-free manner. Again Sebesky's string writing is subtly interwoven.

I Say A Little Prayer For You draws rhythmic aid and succor from Wes' frequent recording companions Grady Tate and Ron Carter, on drums and bass. This transmutation of the Bacharach tune perhaps the most unremitting jazz track of this set, with the strings entering only briefly a couple of times.

Road Song was originally known as OGD when Wes recorded it with Jimmy Smith. It's one of Wes' most charming originals, with a colorful harmonic and melodic contrast in the release the A-A-B-A chorus.

The baroque treatment of Eleanor Rigby puts Wes through a kaleidoscope of moods and voicings, Yesterday, also Lennon-McCartney, takes us back a century or two to a prim pre-Beatle England; that first half minute gives you no hint of what is to come.

The Percy Sledge hit When a Man Loves a Woman displays several of the elements that guaranteed artistic and commercial acceptance for Wes: his own work, both straight and ad lib; the rich, full strings; a triplet touch from Grady Tate.

Scarborough Fair offers a hint of Stravinsky-via-Sebesky, an intriguing rhythmic figure in 5/4 by bassist Richard Davis, and a long, one-chord extension that exemplifies Wes' facility for understatement.

In Down Here on the Ground, Lalo Schifrin's thematic creativity dovetails perfectly with Wes' flair for bringing his own essence, rhythmic and melodic, to any theme. The only non-Sebesky chart here, it was arranged by Eumir Deodato, who for the most part left Wes free to go his own serene sensitive way.

There will be those who may say that the best of Wes Montgomery was yet to come. At 43, no doubt there were still many new ideas to be developed. But this is beyond doubt the best of what he contributed during the last, crucial year.

Wes Montgomery had something to say that had never been said before. It is our good fortune that albums and tapes make it possible for his statements to continue echoing around the world. We shall not, as they say, see his like again.

-LEONARD FEATHER

Harry
...happy to help, online...