George Benson better than Wes Montgomery

CC323 · 07-07-2010, 10:43 PM

RonD,

You must not hang out with saxophonists with their guards down!

**RonD** · 07-07-2010, 10:54 PM

Originally Posted by CC323

RonD,

You must not hang out with saxophonists with their guards down!

Maybe it's a youth thing. You're right. I've heard similar things from sax players. Mind you, they were still students.
Don't remember hearing it from pros.
I teach at a guitar shop, and hear this nonsense every day.
Sorry, I guess it kinda irks me!

**fumblefingers** · 07-08-2010, 07:52 AM

truth1: anybody can play any style.

truth2: black folks created the blues

truth3: African folks have a rythmic sense that is distinctive.

**paynow** · 07-08-2010, 10:42 AM

An interesting interview with Orrin Keepnews that speaks a bit of how self conscious Wes could be about his playing.

For my money both Wes and G.B. are great. I really can't compare them as to who is "better", though they are both better than me.

**jeffstritt** · 07-08-2010, 11:27 AM

Originally Posted by RonD

Maybe it's a youth thing. You're right. I've heard similar things from sax players. Mind you, they were still students.
Don't remember hearing it from pros.
I teach at a guitar shop, and hear this nonsense every day.
Sorry, I guess it kinda irks me!

I used to teach in a guitar shop too, and if I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me, "Who plays faster Steve Vai or Eddie Van Halen or XYZ guitar player," I would be a very wealthy man!

I remember one time a student asked me some kind of question like that, and I told him, "Look, you aren't going to pick up any chicks playing like Yngwie Malmsteen." Haha! The next lesson we worked on a chord melody for "When I Fall in Love." HAHAHA!!! Gotta love how young kids think!

**BigDaddyLoveHandles** · 07-08-2010, 11:43 AM

Originally Posted by jeffstritt

I remember one time a student asked me some kind of question like that, and I told him, "Look, you aren't going to pick up any chicks playing like Yngwie Malmsteen."

Well, shredding may impress Orianthi:

**RonD** · 07-08-2010, 11:52 AM

LOL. Good one! Gonna try it.

**AndyV** · 07-11-2010, 10:53 AM

GB plays jazz with awesome facility and groove. He's an exceptional musician by accepted standards for mainstream jazz guitar. That said, he seldom ever moves me the way Wes did. On uptempo tunes (Impressions), Wes could build musical tension to an almost excruciating level before releasing it perfectly and allowing the listener to relax. Almost no other jazz guitarist I've ever heard could so this as well. On latin and ballad tunes, Wes reached a standard of beauty and warmth that for my personal taste is almost unsurpassed (Here's that Rainy Day, Body & Soul). As good as GB is, for me, he rarely if ever comes close to tapping the well of emotion that Wes got to on a regular basis.

CC323 · 07-11-2010, 12:42 PM

Originally Posted by fumblefingers

truth1: anybody can play any style.

truth2: black folks created the blues

truth3: African folks have a rythmic sense that is distinctive.

Every person has a distinctive rhythmic sense.

**fumblefingers** · 07-11-2010, 09:01 PM

Originally Posted by CC323

Every person has a distinctive rhythmic sense.

i couldn't agree more.

but when it comes down to how infectious it is, and how all the world seems to want to imitate it, well....

**yazzoo** · 07-12-2010, 05:13 AM

Originally Posted by 3shiftgtr

But Wes is just so WES....there is no mistaking ANYTHING the guy plays, and he has that magical connection to maturity, purpose and melody that makes everything the cat played just so dang COOL.
Plus...Smokin at the Half Note....is just a perfect jazz guitar record in every aspect. And for that alone he gets the top spot. Plus, Wes came first.....

Good summary. Agreed 100%.
Anyway, there's no sense, no reason to ask who's better.
I like both. Remember Benson's "Weekend in L.A." double album was one of my first "jazz" vinyl record I ever bought. It was 1978, I was eighteen then

Wonder how many seen Benson swinging with Count Basie and his band?
George Benson & Count Basie - One O`Clock Jump
How do you like it?

**fumblefingers** · 07-12-2010, 07:49 AM

thanks for that, but that was Basie not Ellington.

Benson's talent has taken him everywhere.

**yazzoo** · 07-12-2010, 08:15 AM

Oops, sorry for typo. Of course it's Basie.
Even Benson himself introduce Count Basie on video...

**Aristotle** · 07-12-2010, 08:08 PM

In the 60's, a reporter asked a NASA rocket scientist, "Can you guts see further than Newton and Einstein?" The scientist said, "Yes, but only because we are standing on their shoulders."

I don't know Benson, but I suspect he would have enough class and intelligence to give a similar answer to the question in this post.

**yazzoo** · 07-12-2010, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by Aristotle

I don't know Benson, but I suspect he would have enough class and intelligence to give a similar answer to the question in this post.

Nice, but this is about music and not science. This is something you can feel in your heart, in your head and body and not something you can measure, explain or define in easy way.
There are thousands standing on Bach or Beethoven shoulders, and do you really think they all see further than those two?

**Reg** · 07-13-2010, 12:26 AM

I personally dig early Benson more than Wes, and I dig Wes more than CC. But each player had more to work with than the one before. CC's playing is great, but pretty simple when compared to today's standards, as well as Wes, but when I put their playing in context to when they played... well they all covered. Reg

**franco6719** · 07-13-2010, 04:11 AM

Complex is better?

**franco6719** · 07-13-2010, 04:13 AM

If that were the case, you'd have to go with Alan Holdsworth over Jim Hall!

**franco6719** · 07-13-2010, 04:18 AM

You would have to say that Schoenberg is greater than Bach and Mozart. But that was Yazzoo's point actually. Anyway, I don't necessarily agree.

**Reg** · 07-13-2010, 10:31 AM

I don't think I said complex... that not what I was trying to imply. That would be pretty subjective, depending on what aspect of complexity. What I was trying to do was make a point that each player was in a different period of jazz development, with different harmonic understandings of the language. And since both players were basically not theoretical yada yada.. they played by ear, their music reflected what they could hear. I totally dig wes and cover tons of his tunes at gigs, but harmonically I get bored. GB at least had chops. So here's where my choice of players is heading... As a guitar player, (I'm a pro), I play Wes tunes or his style of playing for audiences, octaves, beautiful melodic lines, simple harmony. When I cover GB's style of playing,( not that many tunes), I'm playing for the audience also but I'm having fun. More harmonic material to work with and you can burn a little, and jazz audiences are ok with it, it's almost expected. Anyway as I said I dig them both... just enjoy playing GB's style of playing more... Best Reg

**brian329** · 07-13-2010, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by Reg

I don't think I said complex... that not what I was trying to imply. That would be pretty subjective, depending on what aspect of complexity. What I was trying to do was make a point that each player was in a different period of jazz development, with different harmonic understandings of the language. And since both players were basically not theoretical yada yada.. they played by ear, their music reflected what they could hear. I totally dig wes and cover tons of his tunes at gigs, but harmonically I get bored. GB at least had chops. So here's where my choice of players is heading... As a guitar player, (I'm a pro), I play Wes tunes or his style of playing for audiences, octaves, beautiful melodic lines, simple harmony. When I cover GB's style of playing,( not that many tunes), I'm playing for the audience also but I'm having fun. More harmonic material to work with and you can burn a little, and jazz audiences are ok with it, it's almost expected. Anyway as I said I dig them both... just enjoy playing GB's style of playing more... Best Reg

This is the crux of all the "better than" or "best" arguments. It boils down not to "who's best", but to "what I like best".

That's why Baskin-Robbins makes 31 flavors and is what makes sense.

FWIW (which is nothing really) I'm a Wes guy all the way.

**franco6719** · 07-14-2010, 04:44 AM

Originally Posted by brian329

This is the crux of all the "better than" or "best" arguments. It boils down not to "who's best", but to "what I like best".

That's why Baskin-Robbins makes 31 flavors and is what makes sense.

FWIW (which is nothing really) I'm a Wes guy all the way.

Exactly. It's completely subjective.

**Aristotle** · 07-14-2010, 09:09 AM

Originally Posted by yazzoo

Nice, but this is about music and not science. This is something you can feel in your heart, in your head and body and not something you can measure, explain or define in easy way.

It was nice. But, I don't buy your characterization of "science."

There are thousands standing on Bach or Beethoven shoulders, and do you really think they all see further than those two?

LOL! There are precious few, if any musicians who are knee-high to Bach. I doubt any jazz guitarist could even claim credibly to be standing as high as the top of Bach's shoe.

Just for kicks - try to write a symphony. Try writing one with the technology available a couple of hundred years ago. Qill pens, parchment, no recording devices, working by candlelight. Motzart wrote about 40 of them before he turned 38. Standing on his shoulders? I can't even see his shoulders from down here.

**larry graves** · 07-14-2010, 04:14 PM

Originally Posted by timski

I've been listening to these two guys back to back for the last few weeks and am going to court controversy and await a tirade of abuse by stating my conclusion:
George Benson was better than Wes Montgomery.

I say 'was' in regard to GB as, IMO, he stopped playing jazz guitar properly in the mid 1970s.
Clearly GB was not as influential as WM, and it is widely acknowledged that WM was GB's main influence but after listening to GB's playing on the likes of 'It's Uptown', 'Beyond The Blue Horizon', 'Giblet Gravy' and 'Bad Benson' I am of the opinion that he fully absorbed what WM had done but then took it to the next level and made it clearly his own.

Plus he had the best jazz tone of all time: the perfect mixture of punchiness, glassiness and warmth. Always delightfully clean but with that 'edge' when he really dug in.

Nobody in the universe is better than Wes, before or after..LG.

**gravitas** · 07-15-2010, 12:19 AM

I think Wes' musical output was way more interesting... When he improvises, he can take an idea and sustain it, develop it, he had the focus to make one motif last an entire solo and stay interesting. In contrast, I saw George Benson last week at the Ottawa Jazz Fest and it just supported what I always thought of his playing: lots of technique, but his phrasing is all over the place! He burns more often than he takes you somewhere... He just doesn't tend to make much of a statement- and with a disco beat to boot.

I think his technique is bogus, too. He never really achieves a consistent sound out of the instrument. Notes crack all the time. For all of his infamous speed, it still sounds very sloppy to my ear.

I'll take me some Wes any day of the week.