The Mastersounds with Wes Montgomery

© Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

The Mastersounds replicated the vibes-piano-bass-drums format associated with the Modern Jazz Quartet to create a light swinging chamber Jazz that exuded subtlety and poise.

The wildly successful Shelly Manne and Andre Previn interpretation of My Fair Lady inspired the group to attempt their own Jazz reading of The King and I and then - augmented effectively by the guitar of Wes Montgomery - Kismet, the famous musical based on compositions by the Russian composer Alexander Borodin.

Recorded and issued on individual vinyl LPs by Richard Bock at Pacific Jazz Records in 1957 and 1958, respectively,, both of these Broadway show Jazz interpretations have long been unavailable on CD until 2009 when Cherry Hill Records combined them released them on their El Records label [ACMEM 174CD] as The Mastersounds with Wes Montgomery.

[The group’s interpretation of Flower Drum Song - also recorded in 1958 and released on Bock’s World Pacific label - has never made it to CD.]

When we did our previous omnibus piece on The Mastersounds, the following information that forms the insert notes from the CD reissuance was not available. Given our enduring interest in this magnificent group, the editorial staff at JazzProfiles that we’d bring it up as a separate posting.

Timing is a key factor in any form of popular music. It's not enough to have the right combination of qualities for success, you also have to have them at exactly the right moment. And it was this one failing that, more than anything else, cost the Mastersounds dear. Quite simply, through no fault of their own they found themselves in competition with one of the biggest groups in jazz history, and there was only ever going to be one winner.

But no one doubted the quality and distinctiveness of the Mastersounds musicianship. Charles Frederick "Buddy" Montgomery, Richie Crabtree, William Howard "Monk" Montgomery and Benny Barth first appeared early in 1957, a light, swinging chamber-jazz combo exuding subtlety and poise. Their graceful style was enthusiastically received, with a three-month residency at Dave's Blue Room in Seattle leading to a stint at the newly-opened Jazz Showcase in San Francisco.

The group was essentially the brainchild of Monk Montgomery, and it was he who secured them their first recording contract with World Pacific Records - a contract which saw the Mastersounds record six albums during the two short years of their existence. (A further two albums followed for Fantasy when the group reunited briefly in 1960).

In the year of their initial disbanding, the Mastersounds won the much-coveted Down Beat Critics' Poll For Best New Group. Yet for all their success  -  and this is where the matter of timing comes in  -  the band must have quickly realised that they would be forever labouring in the shadow of the Modern Jazz Quartet. It seemed that, in jazz circles, there was - and still is - a limitless appetite for quartets who used the standard line-up of sax, piano, bass and drums. 

But somehow the MJQ, formed in 1952, had pretty much cornered the market in genteel chamber jazz in which the vibraphone supplanted the sax and, although the Mastersounds' records sold respectably, the public ultimately seemed reluctant to fully embrace another band ploughing similar territory. musicals Kismet and The King and I.

With their relatively complex harmonies and chord progressions (the score for Kismet was based on compositions by the Russian composer Alexander Borodin) and such material presented genuine challenges for improvising musicians keen to transcend the standard jazz repertoire.

Composers Rodgers and Hammerstein were so impressed by the jazz version of The King & I that they pre-released the score of Flower Drum Song to the quartet to allow simultaneous release with the soundtrack album.

This was harsh on the Mastersounds, who were no mere copyists by any means. As C.H. Garrigues, jazz critic of The San Francisco Examiner commented in his liner notes for a live recording issued in 1959: "It would be difficult to find any area of sincere jazz feeling in which they are not at home."

At a time when many jazz musicians were pioneering new areas such as 'third stream' and free jazz, the Mastersounds were, perhaps, guilty of one crime: caution. Encouraged by the commercial success of Shelley Manne's 1956 album based on interpretations of music from My Fair Lady - with stylish reworkings of the Lerner-Loewe score by Andre Previn - the

Mastersounds jumped on what by 1958 was becoming something of a bandwagon, with their versions of songs from the

For Kismet, the Mastersounds added the guitar of the Montgomerys' brother Wes. By 1958 and already in his mid-30s, Wes Montgomery was finally beginning to establish himself as one of the most important electric guitarists since Charlie Christian, though he was only known to the public as a sideman and was still holding down a day job in Indianapolis to make ends meet. His career as a leader would last less than a decade before his tragic death from a heart attack in 1968, yet during that short time Wes Montgomery made a huge impression. As guitarist Kevin Eubanks puts it: "As far as modern players are concerned, especially from the '60s when everything seemed to catch up with itself and solidify into modern-day jazz, Wes would have to be the most influential figure in the history of jazz guitar."

Montgomery’s characteristically mellow sound derived from the fact that he played using his thumb, rather than the more commonly used pick.

Legend has it that the technique evolved initially out of a purely practical concern: working all day as a machinist, Wes would practise late at night while his wife was sleeping and used his thumb so his playing would be softer and not wake her. His thumb was also double-jointed - making it much more suppler than the norm - and through constant use developed a corn, which Wes would use sparingly to give his sound an occasional edge I that contrasted with the honeyed tone produced by the thumb's I fleshier parts. All these factors combined with a fierce musical  intelligence to make Wes Montgomery a truly original soloist, and the progenitor of a whole school of guitar playing whose followers included George Benson and Pat Metheny - though even rock guitarists like Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan acknowledged his influence. Between 1960 and 1967, he won the Down Beat Critics' Poll for Best Jazz Guitarist no fewer than six times.

In the final years of his life, having recorded on numerous occasions with Buddy and Monk as the Montgomery Brothers, Wes divided his fans by releasing a series of albums on which he covered popular songs of the day accompanied by a full orchestra. While there was an inevitable backlash from those who were disappointed by how little improvisation the albums contained, others pointed to the way in which their enormous commercial success did much to spread the jazz gospel among a younger audience.

Just as the MJQ overshadowed the Mastersounds, however, Wes's success inevitably did something similar to the careers of his brothers Monk and Buddy. Yet as these recordings prove, both were musicians of the highest calibre. Monk, who was one of the very first Fender electric bassists in jazz, passed away in 1982, while Buddy - the youngest brother - died in 2009 and was performing as both leader and sideman to the very end. And though it would be wrong to exaggerate the importance of the Mastersounds in the history of jazz, these two records certainly deserve a better fate than the decades of neglect into which they had long since fallen.”

Christopher Evans