Listen to the Montgomery Brothers’ album Groove Yard—one of my favorite Wes recordings–and dig the first six choruses Wes takes on the track “Back To Back.” There is not one phrase that can be analyzed and identified as a scale or mode per se. They’re all melodies. Every line. Nothing is based on a musical theory or rule. That’s the big difference between Wes, and, say, Johnny Smith, Hank Garland, or early Joe Pass. But Wes knew exactly what he was doing. He would slowly begin a solo with these wonderful, spacious melodies, and with the intention of ramping-up and getting more aggressive with each chorus. Eventually, he would launch into these intense 16-note phrases that could be analyzed from a more scalular approach
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