More Wes Montgomery
More Jazz Recordings Featuring the Guitar
- Movin’ Wes finally arrives on the site with outstanding Double Plus (A++) sound or BETTER throughout
- We guarantee there is dramatically more richness, fullness and presence on this copy than anything you have ever heard, and that’s especially true if you made the mistake of buying whatever godawful Heavy Vinyl pressing is currently on the market
- Credit goes to Rudy Van Gelder once again for the huge space this superbly well-recorded group occupies
- “The guitarist is in excellent form here, playing a nimble solo on the up-tempo waltz ‘Senza Fine’, as well on old favourites from previous albums like ‘Born To Blue’ and ‘West Coast Blues.”
This vintage Verve pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn’t showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to “see” the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It’s what vintage all analog recordings are known for — this sound.
If you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it — not often, and certainly not always — but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.
What the Best Sides of Movin’ Wes Have to Offer Is Not Hard to Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1964
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We’re Listening For on Movin’ Wes
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
TRACK LISTING
Side One
Caravan
People
Movin’ Wes (Part I)
Moca Flor
Matchmaker
Movin’ Wes (Part II)
Side Two
Senza Fine
Theodora
In And Out
Born To Be Blue
West Coast Blues
AMG Review
Wes Montgomery’s debut for Verve, although better from a jazz standpoint than his later A&M releases, is certainly in the same vein. The emphasis is on his tone, his distinctive octaves, and his melody statements. Some of the material (such as “People” and “Matchmaker, Matchmaker”) are pop tunes of the era and the brass orchestra (arranged by Johnny Pate) is purely in the background, but there are some worthy performances, chiefly the two-part “Movin’ Wes,” “Born to Be Blue,” and “West Coast Blues.”
Jazz Fuel Review
In 1964 Wes moved from Riverside to Verve, a bigger label where his releases would be overseen by legendary producer Creed Taylor, who was more business-minded, less purist, than Keepnews.
While his Riverside releases were nearly all relatively spontaneous small-group jazz affairs, Verve now tried to sell him more aggressively, with the guitarist playing more populist material and backed by slickly arranged large ensembles.
Commercially speaking, this approach certainly worked: Movin’ Wes, his first album for Verve, soon became the best-selling album of his career so far.
The guitarist is in excellent form here, playing a nimble solo on the up-tempo waltz ‘Senza Fine’, as well on old favourites from previous albums like ‘Born To Blue’ and ‘West Coast Blues.
by Discover Jazz | Guitar, Jazz Music