'Maximum Swing': More excellent Wes Montgomery recordings brought to light on Resonance

Wes Montgomery reflecting the joy he brought to his music. 

Zev Feldman's restorative efforts on mainstream jazz from decades ago have yielded several CD albums on the Resonance label representing Wes Montgomery, the most enduring and influential jazz figure to have come from Indianapolis.

The latest, "Maximum Swing," representing the guitarist at New York's Half Note with the Wynton Kelly Trio, is the third that I'm familiar with. I'm fond of "Echoes of Indiana Avenue" for its connection with Montgomery's roots in his hometown. Here I want to use as a point of comparison "Live in Paris: The Definitive ORTF Recording,"  the product of a concert engagement in March 1965 with pianist Harold Mabern as the main collaborator. Filling out the central group before a highly receptive French crowd are bassist Arthur Harper and drummer Jimmy Lovelace, with a special appearance by tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin on "Full House" and "'Round Midnight."

In celebration of his birth centennial has now come "the unissued 1965 Half Note Recordings," to quote "Maximum Swing"'s subtitle, with no special guests, but a remarkable variety of bassists over a three-month period at a copacetic place "down on the wharf" (Ron Carter's phrase) in lower Manhattan. The guitarist's partner and host is Wynton Kelly, a distinctive pianist with a painfully truncated career like Montgomery's. (The guitarist died of a heart attack at 45 at his Indianapolis home.) 

The Half Note bassists on this two-disc set are Carter, Paul Chambers, Herman Wright, and another product of Indianapolis, Larry Ridley. As for Alan Grant's friendly on-air hosting remarks, let's just say they're a period piece.

Wes Montgomery was an innovator in terms of his technique, yet not so much in any hints of musical developments to come in jazz. These recordings show his amazing inventiveness within the mainstream. "He understood how to develop a solo," to quote Carter again. His significance lies also in the individual style he deployed with such variety, with melody a key component. That  allowed him to make his mark later in more easily accessible music that set out a path toward jazz fusion and smooth jazz.

The new recordings lack the sonic consistency and clarity of "Live in Paris," but they also feature lots of first-rate Montgomery. The down side is poor sound quality in the second of two sessions with Ridley, sourced unspecifically as "late 1965." There is also some sibilance and background chatter affecting the sound in the first three tracks (September 24, 1965) with Chambers, Montgomery's regular bassist at the time. 

Yet immediately, in the standard "Laura," there is the guitarist's trademark octave style at its best taking over not long into his solo. In the Latin-flavored "Cariba," which follows, single lines, chords, and octaves successively dominate Montgomery's solo, all supporting Carter's praise. There is also Kelly's peerless accompaniment style, which is to my taste more congenial than Mabern's full-bore partnership on the Paris album.

Kelly's comping is to punctuate via light harmonies just ahead of the beat, which adds to the momentum of the guitarist's playing . Wes returns the favor in "Blues," the third track, with Kelly launching the solo turns. 

Montgomery starts things off in fine flight on John Coltrane's "Impressions," which opens a representation of Carter as the quartet's bassist. The inimitable Jimmy Cobb is on drums throughout the album, taking a fine solo on a very fast "All the Things You Are," with Wright on bass. There is a good Ridley solo on "The Song Is You," which is among the tracks with substandard sound — yet bravo, Naptown!

You can tell how much Kelly's comping chords energize Wes' playing as soon as he starts his solo on "I Remember You." The pianist's "fills" in the out-chorus are magnificent. The durable Montgomery original "Four on Six" shows off the guitarist in top form as Kelly's playing subtly suggests phrases to Wes, who picks up on them. There's a fine coda all around based on the four-note riff with which every performance of "Four on Six" gets started and reappears. 

One more thing to pick up from the Half Note set: For a fine exhibition of Montgomery nearly isolated in a ballad, check out "Mi Cosa," an original with the title meaning "my thing." And yes, melody was his thing, but so was much else, and the new release will be welcomed by his fans all over the place.