I wasn’t a lover of guitar straight away when I started listening to jazz. But through the years I’ve tasted bits and pieces of jazz guitar playing and come to really appreciate the instrument in this genre. If I would choose my top five jazz guitarists it would be Montgomery, Jim Hall, Grant Green, Kenny Burrell and Tad Farlow.
When it comes to enjoying Montgomerys music I definitely came late to the party. I just hadn’t focused on him before. But when I started to listen to his stuff I was immediately hooked. I bought Boss Guitar, also on Riverside, which is a lovely album and probably my favorite of his up to this point. It contains some great tunes and it’s extremely well recorded. The opposite can be said for the album on display, it’s not very well recorded if you compare the two sessions. No matter, the music is top notch.
We have a great band here, with Montgomery joined by the great Tommy Flanagan on piano, Percy Heath on double bass and Albert Heath on drums.
Favorite tunes from this album is the Sonny Rollins penned ”Airegin” and Montgomerys own ”Four On Six”.
I will continue to explore Montgomerys output and hopefully I will be able to add some more titles of his to the collection.