Milt Jackson & Wes Montgomery Bags Meets Wes

Riverside

Bags had ten solid years on Wes as a jazz professional, but their admiration was no less mutual. This date, the first in Jackson’s then freshly-minted contract for Riverside, finds him in fine company and a cathartic mood. Meant as a means to momentarily escape the more formalized repertoire of the MJQ, the album allows him to revel in melody-minded blues. Montgomery had a similar interests and their stylistic commonality is in evidence throughout the album.

Producer Orrin Keepnews secured funds for a superlative rhythm section, two-parts Miles quintet and one part Cannonball. Drummer Philly Joe Jones holds his more heavy-handed tendencies in check while maintaining a rousing amount of rhythmic assertiveness. Elevated slightly in the new mix, Sam Jones generates stout walking bass lines that limn the action of the principals beautifully. Wynton Kelly handles the piano duties and also rises to the rigors of third soloist. The songbook isn’t all that notable, a handful of blues and ballads mainly, but it serves the quintet’s purposes and provides plenty of melodic grist for memorable solos. The session sustains the relaxed and congenial demeanor of a blowing session while delivering a degree of musicianship at odds with the stereotype.

Montgomery swiftly rose to the top tier on his instrument within the jazz sphere. That mercurial ascendancy brought with it the temptation to dismiss his popularity, at least in part, as the product of a well-oiled hype machine. Doubts of that nature are summarily dashed here. His crisp, thumb-dictated attack and easy articulation in octaves catapults the relatively simple tunes to higher levels of improvisatory art. Jackson’s mallets accomplish a comparable level of alchemy, blending canny tonal choices with seamless melodic runs. “Jingles” and “Delilah” certainly fit the scenario of turning pedestrian into priceless. Both are relatively middling compositions that achieve resplendence when translated by quintet’s collective talents. Four alternate takes expand the disc to an little over an hour, but differ only slightly from the original album versions. Again, the value is ensconced in the extended opportunity to simply hear these masters blow.

~ Derek Taylor