Wes Montgomery's Finest Hour

Artist: Wes Montgomery
Label: Polygram Records
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 606949066826
EAN: 0606949066826
ASIN: B00004TWRQ

Release Date: 2000-06-27

Related Categories:

Bebop General

| Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Jazz | Styles | Music

General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Smooth Jazz

| Jazz | Styles | Music

Soul-Jazz & Boogaloo

| Jazz | Styles | Music

Hard Bop

| Bebop | Jazz | Styles | Music

Listmania:

Favorite Classic Lounge Music(Jazz, Latin, Tiki, Space Age, Cabaret)
My Top Ten Favorite Guitarists (in no rank)

Tracks:

Bumpin' On Sunset
The Shadow Of Your Smile
Up And At It
Once I Loved (AKA 'Favela')
Milestones
Movin' Wes - Part 1
Tequila
Watch What Happens
Bumpin'
Impressions
Goin' Out Of My Head
Sunny
A Day In The Life
Down Here On The Ground
Twisted Blues
Road Song

Similar Items:

Jimmy Smith's Finest Hour
The Wes Montgomery Trio
Talkin' Verve: Roots of Acid Jazz
Wes Montgomery - Greatest Hits
Hand Jive

Customer Reviews:

An Album Wrapped In Timeless Elegance.......2007-02-28

"The sound is the first thing you notice. It's round and warm, without the brittleness often associated with jazz guitar or the wailing, screaming, look-at-me quality that can mar even the best blues and rock playing. Produced with his thumb rather than a pick, it's a profoundly human sound that invites you in." ~ Peter Keepnews, Liner Notes, March 2000 ~

This lovely compilation album, "Wes Montgomery's Finest Hour" is one of my top favorites guitar music from my collection. This is truly the lyrical guitar virtuoso's ultra finest of his finest hours. It's always been so pleasurable listening to sixteen mesmerizing tunes from the initial track and one of his original compositions, "Bumpin' On Sunset" to the final one, also an original, "Road Song."

Duke Ellington once said: "there are only two kinds of music, good and bad." And definitely this album falls into the first category. So good that any listener will have an hour of great listening experience. Wes Montgomery, one of the tops in my list of favorite jazz giants, will mesmerize you with three of my all-time favorites, "The Shadow Of Your Smile," "Once I Loved" and "Watch What Happens." These tunes are so remarkable - they have that calming and soothing effect that will make you want to listen over and over again, like a hundred times without tiring!

For someone who started playing the guitar at twenty, Wes Montgomery was one of the best jazz guitarists in American music history. He was known for the "use of octaves" and his trademark of using his right thumb instead of a pick, which I think is so uniquely brilliant! He played his signature Gibson L-5 and late in his career, an L4-CES reissue with such precision, elegance and overwhelming beauty. His graceful guitar playing style was characterized by timeless elegance. As what Peter Keepnews further wrote on Liner Notes: "And when it comes to guitar playing that can soothe, seduce, or sizzle as the occasion demands, it doesn't get any better - regardless of the context - than Wes Montgomery."

If you're a fan of Wes Montgomery, this is a great addition to your collection, and for fans-to-be, I would wholeheartedly recommend this as an essential introduction album. You'll absolutely enjoy it!

Happy Listening!

"Nobody can understand how he achieves such phenomenal speed in view of his unorthodox playing technique . . . Wes plucks the guitar with the thumb of his right hand." ~ Gene Lees ~

Great & Bad.......2006-02-26

Wes Montgomery is one of the greatest & most influential jazz guitarists. This album is not his finest hour, though, it's just an hour of Verve music. I don't have all the Verve stuff, so I can't say if it's his best Verve stuff, though I guess it isn't.

The best songs on this disc are truly great. It's the meatier jazz stuff - for example Impressions & Milestones that's the best. Some of the smoother stuff is still pretty impressive - for example Bumpin' On Sunset is slightly corny but the guitar is great. The worst commercial stuff, like Tequila, knocks a star off.

I think a good place to start, or continue, with Wes Montgomery is "Incredible Jazz Guitar".

Wes the schlock years.......2005-09-08

Wes did deserve to "cash in" on his talents, which he did during his later years. But his talents deserved much better vehicles on their ride to the bank. For the most part the arrangements on these tracks are what came to be (rightly) known as elevator music. Even the tracks with Jimmy Smith have hackneed backing tracks.
The live track with Wynon Kelly, from the Live at the Half Note is the extreme exception. If you want to here Wes seek out that recording. It is a solid 6 out of 5 stars recording.

Save the money you would have spent on this mess and buy the new reissue of the half note dates. Listed under the Wynton Kelly name.

A great overview of Wes's music/art!!!.......2004-11-02

Several interesting reviews. Since I believe this is my first review of Wes Montgomery, let me give brief background. I love Lee Ritenour. I discovered Wes Montgomery because of Lee's tribute CD called Wes Bound (5 stars, in fact I am going to review it next). I have purchased 9 diferent WM CDs. I put this near the top. I have listened to all of the CDs. The strength of this CD is that it exposes you to Wes's many styles. Few would dispute (mostly out of respect)his incredible ability. A tune like Up and At It is perfect to display his sweet grooves.

If you are looking for the right CD to introduce you to Wes Montgomery, this is it!!!

The Wrong Wes Montgomery Disc.......2004-07-13

I had a gift certificate from a certain immense corporate chain book and record store (which in tandem with the other immense corporate chain book and record store put my favorite two local book stores out of business and which make book shopping in other cities pointless; it's the same selection now across the country). I was accosted by three salesmen within approximately five minutes. When I told the third to leave me alone, he walked a few paces away and stared at me the entire remaining time.

THAT is my excuse for buying this Wes Montgomery record; I just couldn't concentrate. There is only one good track here, a performance of John Coltrane's "Impressions" recorded live, and unfortunately, the audience continually drowns out the band.

There is nothing inherently wrong with coupling a jazz combo with a large group of strings and certainly not with a big band; there is something inherently wrong, however, with using Don Sebesky arrangements. (Check out Mr. Sebesky's arranging method book for many inadvertant examples of what NOT to do.) It isn't just Sebesky, however: All of the arrangements here are tasteless, and most of the vehicles, the tunes, were chosen not on their merits, but simply because they were some of the biggest hits of the day: "Tequila", "Sunny", "Going Out of My Head", the Beatles's "A Day in the Life", etc. (You might suppose, as I did at first, that this might make the record interesting as an historical document at least, or attractive to the kitsch-is-cool irony-mongering set, but it's too tedious for either of these consolation prizes.)

I would have given this two stars instead of one because Wes Montgomery's playing is palatable despite the awful arrangements and despite the circumstance that he really isn't allowed to solo, if it were not for the disingenuous title and packaging which leads one to believe this is a sort of "best of" package. It is not; it is a sort of "WORST of" package.

If I had come to amazon, I wouldn't have made the mistake I did (and I wouldn't have gone away empty-handed either; I'd have got Incredible or Smokin'). Why not? Because the other one-star reviews would have warned me away. (This is my way of thanking the other reviewers.)

Music CD:

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