For the first half of 2025, Craft Recordings has announced five new reissues to kickstart the next phase of their Original Jazz Classics (OJC) series. Including a pair of historic albums from Miles Davis, a classic (mostly) solo date from pianist Thelonious Monk, along with albums from two remarkable jazz guitarists, Wes Mongomery and Joe Pass. Including 1960's The Incredible Jazz Guitar (Riverside Records), which is widely considered to be the high-water mark of Wes Montgomery's career; it's accompanied by a masterful solo effort from Joe Pass, 1973's Virtuoso (Pablo Records). Other than the first OJC represses of these albums and a handful of limited edition LP reissues, both have been mostly out of print domestically as LPs for decades.
Joe Pass' Virtuoso was cut from the original analog tapes by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio, while Wes Montgomery's The Incredible Jazz Guitar was mastered from an analog tape copy—apparently the original master tape has been missing for decades. The LPs were pressed on 180 gram vinyl at RTI, and both reissues arrived housed in near-perfect replicas of the original, heavy tip-on outer jackets, with crisp artwork sourced from the vaults of Pablo and Riverside Records. Each outer jacket sports a custom OBI strip that provides a glimpse of the reissue's technical information while bolstering their already striking appearance. The LPs were inserted into non-scratching, Craft-branded rice paper inner sleeves, which keeps them free from scratching, static build-up, and paper dust accumulation. The next-level packaging of these outstanding reissues definitely will add to their desirability to collectors. High resolution 24-bit/192kHz digital downloads are also being made available for purchase and streaming on most major online services. You can order copies of The Incredible Jazz Guitar and Virtuoso from Craft Recordings' web store HERE, and they can also be found at a variety of online retailers and brick and mortar locations, like your local independent record store.
Wes Montgomery, The Incredible Jazz Guitar. 180 gram Riverside Records LP, $39 MSRP
The Incredible Jazz Guitar was Wes Montgomery's second studio album, and was recorded over a period of two days in January, 1960, at Reeves Sound Studio in New York City. Orrin Keepnews produced the sessions for Riverside Records; both he and Wes Montgomery assembled a cast of players that included Tommy Flanagan on piano, Percy Heath on bass, and Percy's brother Albert "Tootie" Heath behind the drum kit. Jack Higgins engineered the sessions, and The Incredible Jazz Guitar debuted later that year in April to a significant level of critical praise. Even The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings selected it as part of its suggested Core Collection of jazz recordings. A mixture of standards and Montgomery originals, the album features some of his best-known compositions like "D-Natural Blues," "West Coast Blues," and "Mister Walker"—tunes that have since become standards and are etched in the brains of jazz lovers and guitar players everywhere.
Wes Montgomery was easily among the most highly influential guitar players in jazz; critics and jazz lovers alike have been wowed by his flashy performance style, which is inimitable among guitar players of any era. His unconventional playing featured a mix of cascading modes, scales, and sequences, with soloing progressions that often culminated with block chords. Montgomery developed an entirely unique approach to his guitar, where he played without a pick and plucked the strings with his thumb; he refined his technique during the years he worked as a machinist and welder, and it allowed him to practice the guitar late into the night without disturbing anyone. Montgomery's playing style superimposed triads and arpeggios over chords and was unlike anything else in jazz guitar, while his double jointed thumb allowed him to effortlessly move back and forth along the strings to create his trademark sound. Wes Montgomery's guitar style has never been duplicated and is rarely imitated, and his playing has fascinated jazz lovers and guitar players for decades. The Incredible Jazz Guitar is a showcase of his peerless playing.
Track List
Side A
- Airegin
- D-Natural Blues
- Polka Dots And Moonbeams
- Four On Six
Side B
- West Coast Blues
- In Your Own Sweet Way
- Mister Walker
- Gone With The Wind
Joe Pass, Virtuoso. 180 gram Pablo Records LP, $39 MSRP
Joe Pass reinvented himself for his classic 1973 album, Virtuoso, which is easily considered among his very best albums. Pass got his start playing dances and weddings in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and he soon landed regular gigs with big band outfits fronted by Tony Pastor and Charlie Barnet. In 1947, Pass enlisted in the US military, where he continued moonlighting in big band settings. He landed in New Orleans following his military service, and was quickly ensnared by the lure of unlimited access to drugs; Pass was frequently strung out, and often played strip clubs just to get by. After spending much of the 1950's in-and-out of prison and still mired in addiction, he finally got himself clean after a court-mandated three year stay at the Synanon rehabilitation center. Joe Pass then played on a series of Pacific Jazz label recordings as both sideman and leader, working with the likes of Gerald Wilson, Bud Shank, Les McCann, and George Shearing. But he primarily played session gigs and performed in television orchestras, until Norman Granz of Verve Records signed him to the Pablo label in 1973. And immediately arranged for the recording sessions that yielded Virtuoso, which proved to be the album that really got him noticed in the jazz community. Joe Pass' follow-up record, The Trio, featured pianist Oscar Peterson and bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, and won the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance by a Group. As part of the Pablo Records stable of artists, Joe Pass recorded regularly with a diverse group of artists, including Benny Carter, Milt Jackson, Herb Ellis, Zoot Sims, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Count Basie.
Virtuoso was recorded in August, 1973, at MGM Recording Studios in Los Angeles, with Norman Granz serving as the album's producer. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings also lists Virtuoso as part of its Core Collection of essential jazz recordings. In All About Jazz, C. Michael Bailey said "Virtuoso was the recording to announce that Joe Pass had arrived. Pass had accomplished, using standard guitar performance techniques, to play lead melody lines, chords, and bass rhythm simultaneously and at tempo, giving the listener the impression that multiple guitars were being played." While his guitar-playing initially emulated instrumental stylings of bebop and hard bop, he eventually adopted a much more harmonic approach. His playing incorporated styles of finger picking, hybrid picking (playing strings simultaneously with fingers and a guitar pick), and flat picking; Pass often played with his picks in broken in half, allowing him to achieve a distinctly different sound from anyone else in jazz at the time. While Virtuoso only includes a single Pass original, "Blues For Alican," his mercurial reworkings of jazz classics and standards from Tin Pan Alley showcase his astonishing dexterity and a remarkable pastiche of playing styles. Virtuoso still ranks among the biggest selling records in the Pablo label catalog.
Track List
Side A
- Night And Day
- Stella By Starlight
- Here's That Rainy Day
- My Old Flame
- How High The Moon
- Cherokee
Side B
- Sweet Lorraine
- Have You Met Miss Jones?
- 'Round Midnight
- All The Things You Are
- Blues For Alican
- The Song Is You
This first pair of 2025 releases bodes well for the remainder of the year!
Clicking on my name in the header above will reveal the components that comprise my dual audio systems. For The Incredible Jazz Guitar and Virtuoso LPs, I used the all-analog setup for my evaluation, which features a pair of XSA Labs Vanguard compact monitor loudspeakers. They offer an updated homage to classic British monitor loudspeakers like the LS3/5A, and run in tandem with a pair of Caldera 10 subwoofers that supplement the low-end bass response. The system features PS Audio's superb Stellar phono preamplifier, and is powered by my PrimaLuna EVO 300 tube integrated amplifier, which now exclusively features RAY Reserve and Select tubes. Which have helped elevate the analog system's performance to a remarkable new level of goodness! Both LPs were reissued using the stereo tapes (The Incredible Jazz Guitar was initially issued in both mono and stereo), so I used the ProJect Classic turntable that's mounted with an Ortofon Quintet Bronze moving coil cartridge. It tracked the RTI pressings to perfection, giving them both an organic, all-analog sound that befits classic LPs like the OJCs.
The 180 gram LPs from RTI were beautifully glossy, with no surface imperfections and backgrounds that were virtually silent during playback. Kevin Gray's transfers are superb here, especially with Joe Pass' Virtuoso, which offers a spooky level of realism that places his guitar live and in your listening environment. The Incredible Jazz Guitar—while still as quintessentially mind-blowing as ever—seems to have suffered a bit over the years. Some recent online explorations led me to a Steve Hoffman site, where Steve actually chimed in on the discussion, stating that the original tapes for Montgomery's classic album were missing. And that as far back as the first Fantasy OJC release in 1982, metal parts were used for remastering the LP. Craft described the source tape used for this new transfer as an "analog tape copy"—that still left a lot to conjecture. I reached out to Jacob Kossak of Craft Recordings, and he forwarded my concerns to Mark Piro, Craft's A&R Director. He responded that during a search of the archives, an international tape copy of the mono recordings had been located, and was originally deemed good enough to proceed to the mastering stage. But further research unearthed a stereo tape copy sourced from Japan, and comparing both tapes proved that the stereo recordings were superior to the mono version.
I compared the new LP to my 1982 Fantasy OJC LP, and also compared my Fantasy OJC compact disc to the new high-res digital files Craft supplied to me. In each case, the new LP and digital files were superior to the original OJC's, which I'd always felt had something of a metallic sheen to them. I've always liked the Jack Higgins/Reeves recordings that date from this era, and while Craft's new reissue of what is quite possibly Wes Montgomery's most important recording preserves it for posterity, the sound here doesn't quite match what I hear on Thelonious Monk albums dating from the same period, with the same engineer and studio. That said, I'd personally rather hear classic artistry from a guitarist of the caliber of Wes Montgomery played through a tin box than some audiophile schlock played on a cost-no-object system. The new reissue of The Incredible Jazz Guitar is a definite improvement over the 1982 OJC version.
Mint condition originals of either of these titles are nonexistent on Discogs, with domestic copies regardless of condition rating going upwards of $150 for the Wes Montgomery LP, which makes $39 for Craft's new OJC reissue a real bargain. Should you have more interest in digital files versus the analog, the downloads for each of these excellent albums were totally on par with the LPs. Many thanks to Craft Recordings and Jacob Kossak for his assistance; both The Incredible Jazz Guitar and Virtuoso come very highly recommended!
Craft Recordings
All images courtesy of Craft Recordings.
