"The ofay cat has a technical facility and the Negro has that feeling for jazz. But take an instrument like guitar. In every part of the world white cats could pick it up five hundred or six hundred years ago and they had all that time to get ready. The Negro had to wait for it to be dropped in his lap fifty years ago but after a while he was playing it and getting a whole lot of feeling out of it. But he couldn't get that technical facility. And in fact, I've never heard a coloured guitar player who could come up to the technical standard of some of the great white guitarists. For that reason I don't bother too much about the technical side of guitar. I just concentrate on the feeling". - Wes Montgomery
( Everyone is a product of their times, Wes is no exception, who still uses words like Ofay and Negro !! The old debate rages on...can you still play jazz , blues authentically if you are not black? Depends on how you define authentic, and I think its more the 'culture' you grew up in rather then 'race' that determines your sound/feel. Here's a rare clip of Wes rehearsing West Coast Blues with a horn section. - Ed)
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