Body and soul Wes Montgomery changes

[Avishay mohar]

Does anybody have wes's changes to body and soul?

[Greentone]

Changes seem pretty standard...at least on the "Move Along" album. Key of Db, song begins on Ebmin chord.

Say, Montgomery gets quite a bright tone on that cut, no?

[grahambop]

Wes is credited as playing a ‘bass guitar’ on that track, I’ve often wondered what they meant. Googling it suggests it was either a Fender VI or a Gibson EB-6. Either way it was a 6-string guitar one octave below a normal guitar.

Fender Bass VI - Wikipedia

The EB6 - Baritone

[grahambop]

Might as well hear it:

[neatomic]

it's generally considered to be a gibson eb-6...with the choke bass/baritone switch...

fender bass vi sounds different and wasn't released yet




cheers

[Gitfiddler]

Wes was so incredibly gifted, as were his brothers who nurtured his talent as a youngster.

[Avishay mohar]

Wow! I did not know that.... Amazing!!!!

[Avishay mohar]

I think that in the fourth bar he played fm7,bb7,em7,a7

[John A.]

Wes was so incredibly gifted, as were his brothers who nurtured his talent as a youngster.

Yes to his brothers being talented, but I don't think you can really say they nurtured him musically, at least not as a youngster. Monk had given him a tenor guitar when he was about 12, so I guess that was in some sense nurturing, but Wes didn't get too far with it and really only became serious about music when he heard Charlie Christian at about age 18. At that point, he got himself a 6-string and learned almost entirely on his own. Most accounts say Monk didn't start playing bass until he was 28 (it's unclear what he did musically before that), and Buddy was 8 years younger than Wes. SFAIK, only Buddy actually started playing music seriously as a youngster.

John

[Greentone]

Now that it has been pointed out, I can hear the EB-6 as the solo instrument in the clip above.

FWIW, I use a Danelectro Tic-tac bass (actually a baritone guitar) for such applications. Bucky Pizzarelli used one for years, and I always liked it. IIRC, Pizzarelli played his Dano U2 6-string bass on one of the recordings he made for Stash Records in the 80s...maybe Solo Flight.