Customer Reviews

Complete Live at Jorgies

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Buying anything from Disconforme (Definitive Records) is a gamble, but this is a hit! Big time! Without going into detail the "Live at Jorgies" tapes have been previously released on vinyl and CD. The original release of "Live at Jorgies" and "Live at Jorgies and More" are highly sought after collector's items. They are recordings of Wes and his brothers live August 19, 1961 at Jorgies Jazz Club, St. Louis Mo. and a studio session recorded on November 1963 in NYC with Joe Williams on Vocals.
Wes' playing is amazing. It's great to hear Wes in a truely live concert without song length restrictions. The sessions with Joe Williams are also nice, but more conservative.
Unfortunately the tape recorder ran out of tape during "'Round Midnight." Disconforme made the foolish decision to edit the tape from 3:39 to 2:30, then applauses were grafted to the false ending. Bad choice, that extra minuet is worth hearing.
The sound quality (an 8 out of 10) is the same as previous "Jorgies" releases with no sonic improvement. The liner notes are typical general biographical nonsense with no special relevance to the songs on the CD. Victor Young's composition, "Stella By Starlight" is mistitled "Starlight" by Unknown.
This is a true hard-bop concert, and I'm delighted that it's back in print.

On Something Like Bags (mistitled Back to Bach to Bock), Wes plays one of his best recorded solos. You can hear the audience in the club cheering him on. The atmosphere is great - at one point, the telephone even rings. And the energy here is phenomenal - Wes goes into chorus after chorus of magnificent single line, octave, and chordal work. A rare opportunity to hear Wes and his brothers really play.

Nice concert though sound capture is not so good. Especially Wes guitar you don't hear very well compared with other instruments.

My subject header says it all for me. There is and may never be another Wes Montgomery. If this is your first introduction to Wes's playing I would probably recommend and album called "Boss Guitar". I have nearly every recording of Wes that is currently available and I can not get enough. There are even two DVD's available with pretty good footage of him. Wes can generally produce enough musicality in just one song to last a lifetime. This man was very very special and is the John Coltrane of guitar. Whilst there are technically good players out ther no one has ever come close (in my opinion) to the shear inventiveness and melodic ability in the Jazz genre. If your like me your decision to buy the CD might be for just one track but that one track will likely generate a lifetime of joy as I said.