This video is a literal masterclass about some aspects of how Wes Montgomery plays lines, specifically how uses diminished chords and also how he played over dominant chords, minor chords and some other situations too.
It’s really cool to hear how passionate Tim Fitzgerald is when he talks about this topic, especially when he shares how he spent two years going deep into Wes’s classic 35-minute BBC performance, transcribing it all, and eventually leading to the publishing of Tim’s book, “625 Alive: The Wes Montgomery BBC Performance Transcribed”.
I always love listening to musicians who have gone into iconic players guitar styles and using that as a launchpad into discovering their own guitar style.
In a world where there is so much regurgitated generalized teaching (use this chord scale on this, use this arpeggio on this – because of this or that theory), it’s nice to hear someone say how theory says this, but actually so and so played this instead, and it sounds great, even though it doesn’t fit nicely into the standard jazz/music theory narrative (I’m paraphrasing here).
In this 1 hour and 5 minute masterclass, we get an introduction into Tim Fitzgerald’s fascinating take on the Wes Montgomery style. In addition to the video, Tim also uses two specific chord soloing transcibed examples as a launchpad into further discussion.
If you’re the kind of person who needs 15 to 20 examples of lines and licks in a single video to feel like you got your money’s worth, this video is not for you.
However, if you’re the kind of person who likes to really understand a concept from a single line/lick or phrase, and use the concept as a way inspire your own ideas, you might just dig this video as much as I did.
Some of my favorite parts of this masterclass is when Tim talks about what he learned from Barry Harris , Rodney Jones and what he discovered by transcribing and studying Wes. It’s nice to hear him relate how these things connect and how they relate to one another.
He also talks about it’s not so much what we call a particular sound but all this is a way to classify the sounds we hear so that we have a way of possibly absorbing it into our playing.
It’s really inspiring to see how Tim has taken what he learned from Wes and made it to shape his own sound. I’ve watched this masterclass twice in order to write the review, and I believe I will rewatch parts of the masterclass again so that I can transcribe some of what Tim played, and also to just work on some concepts again.
In conclusion, this is a cool masterclass especially if you dig the Wes Montgomery sound. I look forward to future masterclasses with Tim, I have a feeling it will be amazing too.
Pros: An inspiring masterclass, lots of ideas to digest and practice.
Cons: Not a lot of accompanying PDF material, which is not so much a con for me since I need time to even get the two examples that Tim played, but for advanced players who just get everything immediately at sight, you might be want more examples.
TLDR: If you like Wes Montgomery, you would probably appreciate what Tim talks about in this video. Check it out if that’s you.
This video is part of the materials at Chase’s Guitar Academy. You can sign up for a 7-day free trial to watch this video and much more at Chase’s Guitar Academy here (affiliate link).
Thanks to Chase Maddox for inviting me to experience Chase’s Guitar Academy. Although I received complimentary access to the community, my reviews reflects my personal honest experience of the material.
Interested to read other reviews I wrote on Chase’s Guitar Academy?
Click on these:
1) Video Review: Jazz Fluency – Building Your Improvisational Vocabulary by Corey Christiansen (Chase’s Guitar Academy)
2) Video Review: ii-V-I’s Made Simple – Live Workshop by Chase Maddox (Chase’s Guitar Academy)
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