The album Smokin’ At the Half Note, which featured Wes Montgomery and the Wynton Kelly Trio recorded live in 1965 at the eponymous New York club, was a 24 karat classic. It’s dizzying to realise that Kelly’s trio, with Paul Chambers on bass and Jimmy Cobb on drums, is effectively the rhythm section from Kind of Blue (on which Kelly alternated on piano with Bill Evans). What’s more, Pat Metheny considers that Wes Montgomery’s playing on ‘If You Could See Me Now’ from this LP is the greatest guitar solo of all time…
All of which goes to explain why a wealth of lost recordings from the same musicians in the same club in the same year provokes a considerable degree of excitement. Released on the Resonance label, Maximum Swing doesn’t feature exactly the same line up as Smokin’ throughout; Paul Chambers only appears on one date (24 September 1965) consisting of three tracks. But when he’s being deputised by musicians of the calibre of Ron Carter, there’s no grounds for complaint. The other bass players sitting in for Chambers are Herman Wright and Larry Ridley.
Chambers plays on Laura which is laid back with a light touch and begins with a sub aqua feel — a watery shimmer to the chords — and also on Cariba, Wes Montgomery’s own composition which possesses an infectious, driving energy and must have propelled punters onto the dance floor of the club back in September ’65.
Dizzy Gillespie’s Birk’s Works from the 12 November (Larry Ridley) session is a high speed highlight, intricately and beautifully interpreted by Montgomery. Ridley is also the bass player on Cherokee, a breathless chase that puts Wes Montgomery on his mettle and draws out Wynton Kelly’s explosive dexterity. It’s worth mentioning that Cherokee is one of five tracks from an unknown date — “Late 1965” is as precise as anyone can be. As it says in the (detailed and beautifully presented) notes for the album, “The exact provenance of this final set is undocumented… likely semi-professionally made (at best).” And these recordings are also generations away from the original tape. While Matthew Lutthans and his team as The Mastering Lab have made heroic efforts to present them in the best possible sound, they remain decidedly lo-fi. But as Luthans says, “We hope you enjoy the music, despite the inherent recording flaws.” Well, I certainly enjoyed Cherokee. And, listening to Star Eyes, another one from this selection, I couldn’t help feeling they made the right decision to include these tracks.
Fortunately the finest sounding (to my ears) cuts correspond with Ron Carter joining the band. This 5 November 1965 session is beautifully recorded, with great clarity and immediacy. Impressions has an intoxicating velocity and really does achieve maximum swing. The other tracks from this date, No Blues and Montgomery’s own composition, aptly titled Mi Cosa, are also outstanding musically and sonically, possessing a big, fat intimacy and a hefty impact. They are all presented in superb sounding mono because, although they were originally recorded (and broadcast on the radio) in true stereo, somewhere over the years they were converted into fake (electronically reprocessed) stereo. Who knows why? (As Matthew Lutthans says, it’s “anybody’s guess”.) But for my money they have even more presence and power than the true stereo tracks. And the fact that this beautiful sounding gig coincides with Ron Carter sitting in on bass is one of the more lovely bits of synchronicity in jazz history.
As mentioned, most of these tracks were recorded for radio broadcast and DJ Alan Grant makes frequent appearances (his catchphrase “Stay beautiful” perhaps begins to outstay its welcome) but neither this nor the variability of the recordings lessen the importance of this collection. It is magnificently presented here by Resonance Record on three vinyl LPs with Zev Feldman’s usual loving attention to detail and a lavishly illustrated and annotated in-depth booklet.
