Nica's dream - Wes Montgomery 1965. 

Was just thinking the same as I watched!

Hell. Yes.

Amen brother. Amen. ...LOL!!!!

Amen 🙏

Wes certainly has the X factor.

You know the guys are at a very high musical level when they agree to play a tune and no one needs to count it off or mention what key it will be played in. Wes just says the first section is latin, second is 4-4 swing and then they're all off! No one misses a beat or fluffs a note. Pure genius on the part of all four of them!

@@GeorgiaBoy1961 for me, that moment when musicians just jam some tune for first time is when magic in music happens, everyone is just listening to everyone else and working together, there is reason why some jazz artists in past never rehearsed before recording, they just went in and captured first take...you just get this extreme connection between players and it feels like something written carefully by one person, not few musicians trying tune for first time...but of course, you have to be at top of musical level to be able to do that

​@@GeorgiaBoy1961 you're right

It gets No Damn Better! Fr

I got nothing 😁

it’s Han Bennink on druns

Wes' gorgeous tone on that L-5 CES arch-top guitar, played through either a Fender tube combo amp or a Standel combo solid-state amplifier, was without peer. Playing with the flesh of your finger(s) against the guitar strings affords tone that just can't be topped by mechanic means such as a pick. Classical guitarists have long-known this and Wes is an example in jazz. The range and dynamics you get with the flesh of the thumb are simply outstanding, ranging from very soft and muted to almost trumpet-like attack and staccato. Jazz instrumentalists usually try to emulate horn players when soloing. Horns are the primary front-line or melodic instruments in many jazz bands, and some of the finest and most-influential instrumentalists in the history of the music were/are horn players. The names are familiar to jazz fans... Armstrong, Gillespie, Davis, Brown, Parker, Coltrane, etc. Because of the nature of the guitar as an instrument, it is very difficult to approach the true legato phrasing of a horn player, and fewer still who manage this can also get that popping Clifford Brown-like articulation and phrasing happening... but Wes Montgomery did it. Because he did something that no one else in the history of jazz guitar had done - play single notes, chord fragments and chords with just his RH thumb - Wes had to discover and innovate unorthodox ways of getting around the instrument, and he did this - brilliantly. By using an artful combination of slurs, glisses, hammers-on, pull-offs, slides, ghost notes, rest vs. free strokes, and both forward (downward) and backward (upwards) rakes and sweeps, Wes was able to attain brilliantly horn-like phrasing on the instrument. Most casual fans of jazz guitar, perhaps who do not play the instrument, do not grasp just how difficult it is to accomplish this feat, but the guitarists? Believe me, they know! Of course, beautiful tone and high-level technique alone are not enough; the artist must also have worth-while musical ideas and possess the creativity to create pleasing and memorable music. Wes also possessed this quality and at the highest possible level, in other words he was a musical genius. That word gets thrown around a lot in music, but usually too-freely. However, in the case of Wes Montgomery, it was entirely apt. I attended Aebersold Jazz Camp a few times when I was younger, and got to attend Jamie Aebersold's seminars and those of other jazz greats. Jamie hails from Indiana, and got to see/hear Wes Montgomery perform back in the 1960s when he was a young artist and aspiring jazz alto sax player making his name. Jamie flat-out calls Wes a genius. He would know; not only is he a world-class performer himself on saxophone and piano, he has also played with, met or taught alongside many of the jazz greats over the last half-century or more. Did Jamie even jam with Wes? I can't remember whether that happened or not.... If you love Wes' playing, you owe a debt to the great Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, the all-time great alto player, composer and band-leader who "discovered" Wes passing through Indianapolis on a road trip & tour, and got his label owner - Orrin Keepnews - to sign Wes to the Riverside Label. Thanks Cannonball!

And could that dude swing or what?

@@GeorgiaBoy1961 The pick is just something in your way.. distracting you from getting to the feel, the basics of the guitar.. but then, I played classical guitar, with nylon strings.. aged 12.. and at the same time I plugged my other guitar with pickup screwed over the soundhole into the tube radio :)) It worked both ways.. so my upbringing is some sort of a mess... I guess 😛

@@tomasvanecek8626 - Classical guitar is great. Even you don't end up pursuing it all the time, it is wonderful for developing your RH (or LH as the case may be) technique, and so much else. I love the late Julian Bream more than any other classical guitarist or lutenist, and if I could find a decent lute and learn how to play it, I'd go for it in a minute. I really acquired a taste for Dowland after hearing years ago Bream's famous 1960s LP "Dances of Dowland," done for RCA. Pure heaven far as I am concerned. In addition to playing classical for a while, I also come from a folk music fingerstyle guitar background, namely Travis picking. Some use fingerpicks on their picking hand and a thumb-pick, but I got by just with a thumb-pick, as I am fortunate to possess very hard fingernails which rarely break. Anyway, long story short, my background as a player has predisposed me, you might say, toward liking the sound of the human hand and fingers on a guitar and its strings. Far as your experiments go, I wouldn't call you a "mess," just someone curious to try new and inventive things.... and there's nothing wrong with that. That's one of the beauties of guitar in fact, if you ask me: The pedagogy isn't 100% standardized, and there is still room for the person to find his or her own unique path on the instrument. Whether via a new and different tuning, unique design of the guitar, a new technique for playing, or whatever. Les Paul was like that in the 1940s and 1950s onwards, and so was Chet Atkins, and there were others, too. They ended up inventing new ways of playing and recording. Speaking of Wes Montgomery, I just saw - here on YT - a video of the amazing Tim Mullin with the Gene Harris Quartet, playing an amazing rendition of "Meditation." Mullin is a thumb-only player, self-taught, and he delivers an amazing solo on this tune. Beautifully done with marvelous technique and wonderful ideas. He does it all with down-strokes only, no alternate picking like Wes.

Nunca segundas partes son buenas EXCELENTE TEMA Y ARREGLOS DE LA SONORA PONCEÑA

I wish I had a nickel (or really a sawbuck) for every time I played Nica's Dream on a causal.

@@jessthehorse i wish i had a penny for every time i heard it totally butchered at sessions

He was so in control, in command .. but at he same time the nicest person to play with. I wish so much

"his silences ring..."... you hit the sweet spot there, Stewart! I wish more of today's musicians could understand this....! Thanks so much for your observation.

Well said

I mean never for me too.

I see!!! 😊

Larry Brown yes....I learned much about technique and jazz phrasing by these videos......keep them coming if they are still out there.....its priceless.

Larry Brown what?!? You had joe pass as a teacher? Or did you mean you just studied him? I know im late but i hope you answer

The video exists because it's from Europe. In the US all great jazz videos were erased by the shortsighted morons who kept crying about the high cost of videotape.

@@yandhi5016 well I'm late also, but I went to LBCC and one of students became instructor, took lessons from Mr Pass, became understudy...Frank Potenza. Get em while they're alive!

I love Wes Montgomery. This is brilliant classic jazz guitar playing. I am also joining this thread because I studied with Joe Pass also. I love Joe Pass and his playing. He was an instructor at Musician's Institute in the 1980s. I attended Musician's Institute during that time

railcar123 Wes was a gentle soul and a genius as well....so sad he died so young....we lost so much when he passed......

@@paulyrulo1697 His legacy is our gain - his art is immortal and transcends his death - how can anyone not be sure that he might be weaving his spell somewhere else in this universe right now ?

paulyrulo1 な4たてな45g93

I have many transcripts of his solos.. and it gave me so much. But as you say - being so effortless and fluid .. it takes a genius like Wes

@ Obus - Wes possessed a genius that was truly rare and singular. Fellow jazz cat and Indianapolis native bassist Larry Ridley, Wes' old partner from the early days, said after his death that "Wes Montgomery had something that only God can give a man." So there's no question the man was a genius musically, the genuine article. However, it was also crucial to his development as a musician that he was in the right place at the right time, namely mid-20th century America where there was a thriving jazz scene and ample opportunities for a young musician to learn his craft in front of live audiences night after night, which is the best "school" for jazz of all. People say Wes was untutored and "uneducated" as a musician. I beg to differ: He was highly educated and experienced; he just didn't have a diploma from a conservatory to prove it. And as events proved, he never needed one.

@@GeorgiaBoy1961 AMEN to that!

@@GeorgiaBoy1961 Yep, jazz is a lonely path these days. Transcribing. Maybe play one tune at a jam session once a month, if the Towering Egos there (the big fishes in the tiny pond of my local jazz scene) will let you. Nobody wants to talk about the music, or study together. And the standard of improvisation is quite poor if we're totally honest. Occasionally someone appears from Berkeley or a jazz course, a local "superstar" who got a scholarship, and they play this cookie cutter boring abstract chord scale stuff that doesn't connect to the tradition.

@@PhrygianPhrog - I feel your pain, believe me. Been there, done that and have the scars to show for it. There's an old saying that jazz musicians "eat their young"... well, kind of graphic, but the point stands: There are so few people making a living or getting by in that scene that anyone with talent who rises, the others try and pull him back down. In most fields of endeavor, the older more experienced cats teach the younger ones how to succeed and how to conduct themselves, but in the jazz world, it is all too typical that the older, established cats don't give the up-and-comers the time of day. You're competing with them, you see, and the last thing they want is more competition. Honestly, the scene isn't the same as it was fifty or more years ago. And it probably won't ever be that way again, sad to say. Live musical gigs are now very rare in comparison to those days because of technology and the fact that so few in-person gigs now exist for jazz players..... players of all kinds face this problem, but especially jazz cats. Oh, there are plenty of gigs.... but people expect you to play for free or close to it.

I know. That's what strikes me when watching him play. Looks absolutely effortless. Also the way he plays with his thumb. This guy was a master.

Lauren Russell-Pank agree a master.

Concordo com você! I agree with you!

1122redbird - George Benson was tight with Wes and said that he had like a corn or wart on his thumb that was a small hard protrusion that gave him that unique sound with his thumb. It kind of sounds like a pick. Also on appearing effortless - Wes said that it became second nature to play octaves but that it almost drove him to distraction as he taught himself the technique... I’m paraphrasing from my memory.

I read somewhere he could even talk while playing the lead. He could play so effortlessly, like no other.

His sense of rhythm there is incredible

😊😊

I know. It gets to me every time I see him over to talk to the pianist, because when I'm playing I just kept going over the next section I play in.

@ Patricia G. - Re: "Beyond anything I hear today...I'm 24 and this is sooooooo great... Storytelling." This comment is many years late, sorry about that... Emily Remler, herself an all-time great jazz guitarist and another beautiful person and wonderful talent we lost all too soon, once said that you could hear the melody ("head") of every tune played by Wes when he took his solo breaks. She was absolutely right. His command of the form and content of the tune was always such that he told a story in music. That thematic way of playing is very rare, and not many even otherwise great performers have that quality.... but he sure did. I "discovered" Wes Montgomery's playing when I was about your age, and was positively floored by him. Nothing has changed my mind down to the present day and it has been thirty-five years or so. He's still my absolute favorite jazz artist and jazz guitarist.

Toured and recorded to an early grave, much like Jimi, still these clips are the best bar none, Wes da Bes' forever,

That's probaby because you're not good.

+Joshua Benavides on my worst day I'm better than you on your best day troll

joshua, is right .. you have to try harder ,you have to "spilt blood" , studie

I don't know man, it's an outlet for them. They have anonymity so there's no consequence and they can offend at will. I was merely being self deprecating, expressing my awe of such an iconic talent. No amount of practice makes a player that good. It's genius and they're ability to extrapolate so much from so little. Finally someone with a brain saw my post :) Yes peace my friend.

+James C Actually if you listen carefully you'll notice his intonation is very frequently ever so slightly off - such is the nature of the guitar. Also I'm sure he would tell you that he constantly makes "mistakes", it's just that his instinct for transmogrifying them into musical motifs is highly refined.

Prior to hearing this and other recordings Wes Montgomery made with this trio I had no idea how great Pim Jacobs and his Trio were! What wonderful and brilliant musicians!

I was wondering myself if there was any connection. Like the late great Hendrix, one always wonders what could have been/where would this have gone.

Different worlds.

No one then or now has ever been able to accurately replicate what Wes did on the guitar. There are people who play some octaves and claim they're got Wes nailed down but that's completely false. Octaves are where his style begins, not where it ends. A very few greats such as George Benson and Pat Martino have gotten somewhat close at times temporarily, on certain numbers, to what he did ... but that's as close as anyone has ever gotten. Only Wes could be Wes, know what I mean?

@@GeorgiaBoy1961 Exactly.. just octaves playing can become such a cliche in no time... Funny thing is, I once read an interview with Wes, where he said it came out from him just checking if the tuning (in octave) is right ... true or false ? we´ll never know ;)

@@tomasvanecek8626 - My opinion - for what it is worth - is that particular story is probably a tall tale or myth that got embellished over time... but you're right, we'll probably never know for certain. Wes didn't "invent" using octaves as a part of his playing, Django Reinhardt had used them previous to Wes at times, to name one example. Wes' notoriety comes from how fluently he used the technique and how seamlessly he segued between soloing in single notes, octaves and block chords. No one had ever done anything like that before, with that success and to that degree. It's a cliche by now, but since no one ever told him what he was doing was "impossible," he just went and did it!

Yesss

***** power chords were used by Robert Johnson back in the 1930's and it probably existed before him.

***** Wes didnt need all those electronic gadgets to make great sounds.....he let his soul and fingers do the talking....ixnay on the fuzz boxes et al for me.....just set the amp on a nice deep tone and play the guitar man!

❤

that's Horace bro! Oh, How He would set a groove...

Actually this is Pim Jacobs. Can't get enough of Horace, though! Cheers :)

Yup, Pim Jacobs - Horace wasn't quite that boppy with his soloing. My general impression of him is a preference for funky, groovy, singable lines w/strong foundational comping (both under his own playing and under his band mates' soloing)

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