Further Adventures Of Jimmy And Wes

Further Adventures of Jimmy and Wes

Wes Montgomery

Following Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery was the third major innovator in jazz guitar. 55 years after his death, we are celebrating his 100th birthday. His outstanding musicality, his virtuosity and his style of playing have been influential to major players like Pat Metheny and George Benson, and to most younger players. Wes Montgomery broadened the vocabulary of jazz guitar like no other player, and it seems that even decades after his passing, his importance is increasing to a level that many players agree he was the most important guitarist in jazz. This is the first biography on Wes Montgomery in over 40 years. It covers details of his family background, his early days as an amateur musician in Indianapolis, reviews of over 50 albums and it includes a full chronological discography.

Beneath Missouri Skies

The New Yorker recently referred to Pat Metheny as “possibly the most influential jazz guitarist of the past five decades.” A native of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, just southeast of Kansas City, Metheny started playing in pizza parlors at age fourteen. By the time he graduated from high school he was the first-call guitarist for Kansas City jazz clubs, private clubs, and jazz festivals. Now 66, he attributes his early success to the local musical environment he was brought up in and the players and teachers who nurtured his talent and welcomed him into the jazz community. Metheny's twenty Grammys in ten categories speak to his versatility and popularity. Despite five decades of interviews, none have conveyed in detail his stories about his teenage years. Beneath Missouri Skies also reveals important details about jazz in Kansas City during the sixties and early seventies, often overlooked in histories of Kansas City jazz. Yet this time of cultural change was characterized by an outstanding level of musicianship. Author Carolyn Glenn Brewer shows how his keen sense of ensemble had its genesis in his school band under the guidance of a beloved band director. Drawn from news accounts, archival material, interviews, and remembrances, to which the author had unique access, Beneath Missouri Skies portrays a place and time from which Metheny still draws inspiration and strength.