Album Review: The Wynton Kelly Trio and Wes Montgomery, Smokin' in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse (2017)

Smokin' in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse, by the Wynton Kelly Trio and Wes Montgomery, recorded in 1966, and released in 2017.

In 2017, Resonance Records released Smokin’ in Seattle: Live at the Penthouse which presents two radio broadcasts from April of 1966 by Wes Montgomery and the Wynton Kelly Trio. It’s an excellent recording and well worth the time of fans of Montgomery and Kelly. 

Wes Montgomery was one of the most exciting jazz guitarists of the 1960’s. Born in 1925, Montgomery toured with Lionel Hampton’s band from 1948 until 1950, but for the rest of the 1950’s he played only around his hometown of Indianapolis and recorded sporadically. The 1960 album The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery was an excellent title, and that album helped raise his profile across the country. Montgomery recorded for the tiny Riverside Records label, which was also the home of Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk, and numerous other important jazz musicians of the era. 

After Riverside Records went bankrupt, Montgomery switched to Verve Records in 1964. The records he made for Verve featured him playing alongside strings and brass. The music was still jazz-flavored, but certainly closer to easy-listening jazz than the straight ahead hard bop he was playing on his Riverside records. Montgomery’s albums for Verve were very successful, and he started breaking through to mainstream pop record buyers. Montgomery made three very successful albums for Herb Alpert’s A&M records in 1967 and 1968, and these albums further raised Montgomery’s profile. Unfortunately, at the peak of his commercial success, Montgomery died of a heart attack on June 15, 1968, at age 45. 

There will always be a critical split on Montgomery, as jazz purists resented him for the pop success of his Verve and A&M recordings. However, it’s clear that in his live performances he was still playing straight ahead jazz. The big question is: where would Wes have gone and what would he have done had he lived longer? Of course, we don’t know. Perhaps Montgomery would have found a way to please both the jazz critics and his growing public. Personally, I will always have a soft spot for Montgomery’s 1967 album A Day in the Life, as it’s one of the first jazz albums of any kind that I listened to, and that really spoke to me. A Day in the Life, along with Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, was one of my gateways into jazz. The LP of A Day in the Life was in my Mom’s record collection, and the vivid gatefold sleeve grabbed my attention, with its dramatic photo of stubbed out cigarette butts. I also liked that the album was named after a great Beatles song. From there, I explored the rest of Montgomery’s discography, and I appreciate all of the different aspects of his career. For pure jazz, the Riverside records are the best, but I think his Verve and A&M records are great examples of 1960’s orchestral jazz-pop. The arrangements for the other instruments were always written after Montgomery had recorded the songs with a small rhythm section, and for this reason, the arrangements are sympathetic to what Wes was playing. Montgomery had such a gorgeous tone and sound, it’s no wonder that people wanted him to record pop songs. His playing still sounded great, even if he didn’t get to solo very much. 

Wynton Kelly already had a long and successful career by the time he recorded these concerts with Montgomery in 1966. Kelly had backed Dinah Washington, and had played with Miles Davis from 1959 to 1963. In Davis’ band, Kelly led one of the most swinging rhythm sections in jazz history, as he combined with bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Jimmy Cobb. Although Kelly was a full member of Davis’ band by the time the group recorded Kind of Blue, he abdicated the piano chair to Bill Evans for the whole album, except for “Freddie Freeloader.” Kelly played on Davis’ next small group album, 1961’s Someday My Prince Will Come, which I reviewed here, and also the excellent 1961 live albums At the Blackhawk, which I reviewed here, and Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall, which I reviewed here. Kelly was a superb accompanist, and he had a sound that was firmly rooted in the blues. However, Kelly was versatile enough to shine on lyrical ballads as well. Kelly was in some ways the quintessential sideman, always complimenting the other players well. As drummer Philly Joe Jones said, Kelly “put down flowers behind a soloist.” 

Kelly and Montgomery previously played together on the superlative 1965 live album Smokin’ at the Half Note and also on the 1962 live album Full House. Their playing styles complimented each other very well, as they were both very lyrical players. One of the things that made Montgomery’s guitar sound so unique was the fact that he didn’t use a pick. Instead, he used the soft part of his thumb, giving his guitar a mellow, softer sound.

On Smokin’ in Seattle, Kelly and Montgomery are backed by Cobb on drums, and Ron McClure on bass. McClure faced the unenviable task of replacing Paul Chambers in the summer of 1965. Taking over for one of the dozen or so most significant bassists in the history of jazz must have been difficult, but McClure equips himself well on this recording.

Smokin’ in Seattle starts out with just the trio of Kelly, McClure, and Cobb, and they perform a nicely swinging version of “There is No Greater Love.” The song is an excellent example of Kelly’s soloing style—he was always smooth, swinging, and easy to listen to. When I was writing about Miles Davis’s 1961 recordings featuring tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley, it became a challenge for me to find new and different ways to say, “Wynton Kelly sounds great,” and “Wynton Kelly really swings like hell on this song.” “There is No Greater Love” also gives the listener a great example of Jimmy Cobb’s drumming style, which always propels the music along without overshadowing the other players. The next song is the dramatic ballad “Not a Tear,” recorded by Kelly recorded on his 1964 album It’s All Right, which features a great, cheesy pop art album cover. Kelly shifts the dynamics as the song shifts tempos and turns into a swinger. 

Montgomery joins the group on his sprightly original tune “Jingles” and the ballad “What’s New?” Both tunes featured in his live repertoire at the time, as “Jingles” is also heard on his 1965 Paris concert, and “What’s New?” appears on Smokin’ at the Half Note. Listen for Wes’ quote from the “Habanera” from the opera Carmen during “Jingles.” On “What’s New?” Montgomery’s guitar is bathed in reverb, giving it a late-night feeling. The first radio broadcast ends with a brief tune called “Blues in F,” which unfortunately fades out after just two and a half minutes. You can hear how at home both Kelly and Montgomery are with the blues structure. There’s a brassy, bold exuberance to their playing on this brief song. 

The second broadcast opens with the trio playing “Sir John,” written by the trumpet player Blue Mitchell. “Sir John” is another lightly swinging groover, and it finds Kelly in his wheelhouse, sounding loose and easy as he effortlessly throws off tasty melodic runs for the entire eight minutes plus of the song. McClure also gets a nice bass solo in the second half of the song. “If You Could See Me Now” is a nice ballad that Kelly gives a sparkling introduction to. 

Montgomery joins the group again on “West Coast Blues,” another one of his originals, from the Incredible Jazz Guitar album. It’s a nice version, but fairly short at four minutes. More satisfying is the lovely version of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “O Morro Nao Tem Vez,” known in English as “Once I Loved.” It’s great fun to hear Wes stretch out on this bossa nova, playing his signature octaves. And then the broadcast comes to a close with a brief version of Sonny Rollins’ “Oleo,” which fades out after just two minutes, but shows the rhythmic dexterity of all the players. 

The packaging of Smokin’ in Seattle is excellent, and the booklet includes interviews with Ron McClure and Jimmy Cobb, along with other experts on the music of Wes Montgomery and Wynton Kelly. Both McClure and Cobb make the point that both Montgomery and Kelly were very nice guys, and how their music reflects their personalities. I hadn’t thought about that point before, but it’s true—there’s an effervescent exuberance about both their playing that shines through brightly on this recording. Both Wes Montgomery and Wynton Kelly died far too young—Montgomery was 45 when he died in 1968, and Kelly was just 39 when he died in 1971. So any new music by either Wynton Kelly or Wes Montgomery is to be welcomed, and Smokin’ in Seattle is a terrific find for fans of these talented jazz musicians.