12/11/2025
January 28, 2009
Greetings!
The February issue of DownBeat is on newsstands now, which features Wes Montgomery on the cover. Wes is one of the 75 great guitarists in this issue, the first of a series of articles that celebrate DownBeat's 75th anniversary. We shine the spotlight on 75 of the all-time great jazz, blues and beyond guitarists who have graced the magazine's pages. We scoured the DB archives for classic quotes and interviewed a number of the living masters to offer an overview of the historical progression of the guitar in improvised music through this group of the music's great six-stringers.
This issue also features DownBeat U-Guitar School, stories on Jack Bruce, David Binney, our "100 Great Jazz Clubs" international club guide, and much more!
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75 Great Guitarists
By Ed Enright
The 75 guitarists featured are:
• Al Di Meola
• Albert King
• Ali Farka Touré
• Allan Holdsworth
• B.B. King
• Barney Kessel
• Ben Monder
• Bill Frisell
• Billy Bauer
• Bireli Lagrene
• Bucky Pizzarelli
• Buddy Guy
• Carl Kress
• Charlie Byrd
• Charlie Christian
• Charlie Hunter
• Chet Atkins
• Derek Bailey
• Django Reinhardt
• Earl Klugh
• Eddie Condon
• Eddie Durham
• Eddie Lang
• Frank Gambale
• Frank Zappa
• Freddie Green
• George Benson
• George Van Eps
• Grant Green
• Herb Ellis
• Howard Alden
• James Blood Ulmer
• Jeff Beck
• Jim Hall
• Jimi Hendrix
• Jimmy Bruno
• Jimmy Raney
• João Gilberto
• Joe Pass
• John Abercrombie
• John Lee Ho**er
• John McLaughlin
• John Scofield
• Johnny Smith
• Kenny Burrell
• Kurt Rosenwinkel
• Larry Carlton
• Larry Coryell
• Lee Ritenour
• Les Paul
• Lionel Loueke
• Lonnie Johnson
• Marc Ribot
• Martin Taylor
• Mike Stern
• Muddy Waters
• Nels Cline
• Oscar Moore
• Paco de Lucia
• Pat Martino
• Pat Metheny
• Peter Bernstein
• Ralph Towner
• Robert Johnson
• Russell Malone
• Sister Rosetta Tharpe
• Sonny Sharrock
• Stanley Jordan
• Steve Cropper
• T-Bone Walker
• Tal Farlow
• Terje Rypdal
• Tiny Grimes
• Vernon Reid
• Wes Montgomery
[more]
[PHOTOS: DOWNBEAT ARCHIVES]
Wes Montgomery
DownBeat Archives
July 20, 1961
By Ralph J. Gleason
Few jazz musicians
have had the rise to professional acclaim
that John Leslie (Wes) Montgomery, the guitar-playing member of the Indiana Montgomery family, has had in the last two years.
Up until that time almost unknown to the jazz public outside his native Indianapolis, Montgomery was heralded by Cannonball Adderley, Gunther Schuller, and other musicians who heard him, and was brought by Adderley to the attention of Orrin Keepnews of Riverside Records, who promptly recorded him.
Since that debut (his second, for he had toured with Lionel Hampton for two years in the early '40s), Montgomery has run away with the New Star guitar category in DownBeat's International Jazz Critics Poll and today seems a cinch to live up to his billing as the "best thing that has happened to the guitar since Charlie Christian."
For the last year, West has worked with his brothers, Buddy (vibes) and Monk (bass), as the Montgomery Brothers. The other two Montgomerys are half of the original Mastersounds quartet, which, a few years ago, won the Critics Poll as best new small group.
Pinned down recently between rehearsals and pool games (shooting pool is his only hobby), Wes discussed guitar players (including himself) with the ease and familiarity born of years of listening.
[more]
[PHOTO: VERYL OAKLAND]
David Binney
Finding Harmony
By Ted Panken
On those increasingly infrequent occasions when alto saxophonist David Binney comes off the road to his Manhattan home, he plays alternate Tuesdays in the cramped back corner of the 55 Bar, the low-ceilinged ex-speakeasy in Greenwich Village.
"I've done the gig for eight years," Binney said before hit time in late August, many times, he noted, with his partners this evening-pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Dan Weiss. "The 55 is why I've had real bands. I used to invite whoever was available, or I'd think of weird mixtures of people."
Binney was no stranger to the friendly confines when he launched this residence in 2000, after working as a sideman for two years of Tuesday nights with Leni Stern. During the early '90s, before the 55 had morphed from its identity as a fusion-oriented "dive bar," he came in occasionally with the collective quartet Lost Tribe. As the decade progressed, he workshopped the music for the albums The Luxury Of Guessing (Audioquest) and Free To Dream (Mythology) that began to spread his reputation, convening such A-listers-to-be as Uri Caine, Edward Simon, Donny McCaslin, Alex Sipiagin, Ben Monder, Adam Rogers, Scott Colley, Jeff Hirschfield and Kenny Wollesen for his ensembles. After 2001, the late Queva Lutz, who had bought the premises, hired Binney to book the room.
"Queva wanted to clean it up and w**d out the stuff she didn't like musically," Binney said. "We became friends, and since she didn't know the jazz scene, she put a lot of responsibility on me to bring in musicians. I brought in a bunch of my friends, and suggested people who I knew would draw."
[more]
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Thanks for checking out DownBeat.com, and have a jazz-filled week!
Sincerely,
The staff at DownBeat Magazine
In This DownBeat.com
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On Newsstands Now ...
75 Great Guitarists
Wes Montgomery
David Binney
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