The Pacific Jazz "Rape" Of Wes Montgomery

[JSngry]

Ok, so, there was all this fuss about Verve doing or not doing that WILLOW WEEP FOR ME album with or without the strings (myself, I like it both ways, so whatever...). Old news, right? Well, this afternoon, I procured an album that bumps the necrophilliacometer up another notch. This time they "raped" Wes while the body was still warm!

The album in question is A PORTRAIT OF WES MONTGOMERY, World Pacific Jazz ST-20137, a art of the "Jazz Milestones Series", a series that in my embyonic jazz days introduced me to the Mulligan/Baker Group, the first Chico Hamilton 5tet LP, TWO DEGREES EAST, THREE DEGREES WEST, KONITZ MEETS MULLIGAN, and a few other REALLY nice classics from the PJ catalog.

But THIS album is a little, uh... "different". It seems that hot on the heels of Wes' death, Pacific Jazz saw fit to reissue some of their Montgomery holdings. Well, ok, that's par for the course, of course. But in the words of liner note writer John William Hardy (always a tough guy for me to get a handle on, for some reason), "In recent years, the poignant sound of Wes Montgomery's guitar has been almost exclusively housed within the frameork of a large orchestra. Thus, with this record, producer Dick Bock has seen fit to have Gerald Wilson create settings of brass and strings to enliven the proceddings....If the elaboration of these performances by Wilson will assist the non-jazz listener to hear them, the whole thing's worth while. AM car radio listening has been a more pleasurable experience in the recent past with Wes Montgomery's fine sound pouring forth amid the brass and strings..."

I'd never even heard of this record. Seems like it came in the last 5 or so years of PJ's activity, so if it vanished w/o a whimper that's understandable. But what REALLY intrigues me is Gerald Wilson's presence here. What kind of charts did he write, and how, HOW did they make a late-60s orchestral overdub session fit on top of a mid-50s combo session without it sounding TOTALLY unnatural? Or did they? I don't know yet, because my turntable situation is not yet resolved (but it will be soon).

I'm sure some of the vets here have heard this record, but I'd never even heard OF it. Frankly, it kinda boggled my mind, although I don't really know why it should. But for 7 bucks, hell YEAH I bought it. Input, anybody?

[mikeweil]

Sorry Jim, never heard it, and I think I can live without it, even though I reckon Gerald Wilson did a very good job - what would we have thought if he didn't?

They probably emulated Verve's approach, who overdubbed even on those magnificent Half Note live recordings. Remember, it was the late 1960's .... if they shut down shortly after, they probably needed some money.

Adrian Ingram's book on Wes says it was released in 1969, so it's obvious they wanted to cash in on Wes' sudden death. But there seems to have been only one identical reissue on British Liberty - that probably was the European issue at that time. So good taste rules, after all!

Edited October 12, 2003 by mikeweil

[P.D.]

I had this album. I felt it was PJ trying to cash in on Verves winning formula of post Wes Going Out of My Head recordings. Just as Verve themselves did with the Willow weep set.

At the time the British Jazz press reviewed the Album badly due mainly to the addition of the Wilson charts to Bock to Bock which was by the Montgomery Brothers and considered to be one of Wes' first major solo outings.( The unadulterated "Bock" is now available on the Fingerpickin CD)

The unalterated set was released on vinyl in one of those Blue Note double albums during the mid seventies.

That recording session was also Freddie Hubbard's first recording, which I think also contributed to the bad reviews concerning the alteration of the tracks.

I tend to be a bit of a purist about Jazz and prefer unaltered recordings, so I bought the album for the Bock session, but played it rarely. I felt it was not as unsuitable as the Willow set, probably due to Wilson, and I am not a great supporter of Jazz with Strings.

I am perhaps not as narrow minded about these things now but both these sessions, the Half Note especially, were originally recorded as "blowing" sets and therefore in this case I still feel the addition of orchestrated over dubbed parts is detrimental to the music.

[Jim R]

Very interesting. First of all, although I'm a virtual Wes completist I have never owned this. I've been aware of it for a long time, and I've probably come across it a few times (not even certain about that, despite having looked at tens of thousands of LP's over the years), but it never occurred to me to look for it. Now that I think about it, I probably just assumed that this was a straight compilation, and didn't read the "fine print" regarding Gerald Wilson. At any rate, it's high time this came into focus for me. When I look at the cover photo in the Ingram book, the naive part of me (roughly 87% ) sees a record that could have been issued as a sincere tribute to a beloved artist who had recently died too young. On the other hand, I can see the "cynical" perspective as well, and I'm not here to say that the greed factor makes no sense to me. I just wonder if it could be overblown a tad. Maybe Gerald Wilson himself would be the person to analyze the hows and whys.

I went looking for a cover scan, but came up empty. For the casual Wes fan who may be reading this thread, I wanted to go ahead and point out that we're talking about a relatively obscure LP here, and not the more widely-known release (with very similar title) on Riverside- "Portrait of Wes". Whilst hunting, I came across this at AMG. FWIW:

AMG REVIEW: Let's say it up front; this reissue was motivated primarily by greed. Immediately in the wake of Wes Montgomery's sudden death in 1968, noting the loot that A&M and Verve were raking in, Liberty tried to emulate the successful Wes-plus-orchestra formula by "sweetening" some of the guitarist's early Pacific Jazz sessions with strings and horns. Oddly enough, the concept almost works, for the estimable Gerald Wilson is in charge of the charts, and he writes some swinging, well-played things for big band that are laid down precisely in sync with the small combo tapes to surprisingly good effect in spots. The string charts are less successful; the writing is OK, but they are not well-executed. In any case, these attempts don't sound much like the A&Ms and Verves anyway, and they often smudge what Wes, his brothers and colleagues were trying to do. Worse, many of the tracks are cut, no doubt to attract radio play. Still, the LP was enterprising enough to offer a swinging taste of the obscure Wes collaboration with Jon Hendricks, "A Good Git-Together," the only time as of this writing that anything from that album has resurfaced (albeit heavily trimmed and orchestrated). Pick this up secondhand only if it's cheap.

$7... I'd say that's "fair" if not necessarily "cheap". My turntable situation is sort of in limbo too, so I'm still not going out to look for this.

[kh1958]

Speaking of Wes, I was fortunate last week to be able to hear a group led by drummer Ray Appleton (featuring Gary Bartz, Larry Willis, and Peter Bernstein on guitar) at Jazz Standard, performing as Remembering Wes Montgomery. I sure enjoyed this geat sounding band, performing Wes's compositions and associated songs, and it also reminded me how much I like Wes. Mr. Appleton spoke of Mr. Montgomery playing him the full tapes from the Full House session (probably my favorite of his recordings), that they recorded the whole night. Has any of this been released beyond the original LP?

[Chuck Nessa]

The current cd of Full House has alternates of Come Rain Or Come Shine and S.O.S, and a version of Born To Be Blue.