Wes Montgomery ‎– A Day In The Life

Wes Montgomery is one of those essential jazz artists who found himself relegated to playing easy-listening commercial albums that ranged in quality from very good to rather poor. Sadly, A Day In A Life taken from the Beatles’ song and covered here, is not very good at all, though in the same breath, it’s not easily dismissed either, laced with entirely hazed smokey grooves that come off with a sense of casual jaunty coolness.

It’s an album of cover songs that range from psychedelic pop to R&B soul, along with a smattering of Bossa nova influences that were all the rage during the mid 1960’s and favored by many jazz musicians. That said, what the album does suffer from is any originality, where the majority of the songs come across washed with overbearing stings (simply listen to “When A Man Loves A Woman) and a rather simple reading of the tunes, finding Wes bringing nothing new to the table, nor does he stand and deliver what is here with a sense of strength and mastering of a talented musical vision; and Wes Montgomery is certainly capable of so much more. Remember, Wes was the absolute boss when it came to thoughtful well crafted and delivered electric jazz guitar.

Times were changing with the rise of popular young people’s music during these heady years, finding truly great artists filling the background of classic FM stations with sounds oddly and un-essentially related to those changing times. While this sounds as if I’m waving this album off, it did reach number 13 on the Billboard Top 200, number 1 on Billboard’s Jazz charting, and sliding in at number 2 on the R&B charts, though again, those sales were due entirely to the consumption of an older generation striving to be hip, with the tracking “Windy” being a bonafide hit.

All and all, this album stands with more resonance today than I gave it so many years ago when I was caught up in the Beatles, the Stones and so many others. While Wes doesn’t use many effects here, the sound delivered is quite sweeping in nature, nearly symphonic and very much alive, as Montgomery’s guitar comes across as if it is eerily singing, belaying an unexpected sense of drama. When all’s said and done, this is still an essential album to become well acquainted with.

*** The Fun Facts: The album was recorded rather well, with the conversion to stereo, coming across sounding very natural and space filling. I’ve never been lucky enough to hear a flawless copy in mono, though that’s high on my list.

Guitar: Wes Montgomery plays a Gibson L-5 CES, with an article in Jazz Guitar saying "During his entire career Wes Montgomery played almost exclusively a Gibson L-5 cutaway electric Spanish guitar.”

Regarding the cover art, I can’t tell you if this was meant to be part of the new photography of the day, finding beauty in the most obscure of places, leaving this image of and ashtray filled with crushed unfiltered Lucky Strike and two single Salem cigarettes (featuring two gold bands) with traces of lipstick, along with a single wooden match, certainly seems rather dirty, uncool and rather undesirable … though (laughing) perhaps it shows Wes Montgomery’s contempt for the record and the tenets that had been placed on him.

My copy: Spine is stamped Stereo A&B-SP 3001 Montgomery: A Day In The Life
Full Gold spindle label.

Review by Jenell Kesler

Some input please. My version has a runout of CTSP-3001 3001-4 with the VAN GELDER stamp. This is similar to one of the versions. However, my label differs from this version as mine has the thinner "STEREO" above Side 1. Not sure how to approach this. Create a new version? Or pick one of the versions already created?