Billboard : 02/15/1960
Three stars

Montgomery is an accomplished cat with his amplified guitar and he plays here in combo form with Melvin Rhyne on organ and Paul Parker on drums. The group plays a moody kind of easy-going jazz for the most part with the dexterous-fingered Montgomery much in the spotlight. A sample of the fare would include Satin Doll, The End of a Love Affair, Too Late Now, etc. Listenable material.

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Buffalo Evening News
N.L. : 02/27/1960

Something for the book! A “dynamic new sound” is a mild sort of description for the dramatic effectiveness of relaxed modern jazz by Montgomery‘s guitar, plus organ and drums. An utterly fascinating listening experience with unorthodox guitar-sound weaving itself adroitly among strands of organ patterns by Melvin Rhyne and the alert, sensitive drumming of Paul Parker. Included: ‘Round Midnight (Thelonious Monk); The End of a Love Affair; Whisper Not (Benny Golson); Satin Doll (Ellington); Missile Blues and Jingles by Montgomery. Highly recommended for the initiated.

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HiFi / Stereo Review
Ralph J. Gleason : May, 1960

Interest: A great new guitarist
Performance: Frequently inspired
Recording: Adequate

Not since the legendary Charlie Christian has there been a guitarist who has excited jazz musicians and listeners to the degree that Wes Montgomery has. To begin with, he possesses that instinctive sense of phrasing which makes everything he does swing in the best sense of the word. He also has a rare gift for form so that his own solos are constructed in long lines that build rhythmically, as well as melodically, to logical climaxes which enhance the performance. Here he is accompanied by a drummer (Paul Parker) and an organist (Melvin Rhyne) who may eventually be up to the task of providing him with the very finest kind of backing. They have not reached this point as yet but like all other major jazz soloists, he rides majestically on through and is not one whit concerned. Clearly his work is of the first rank and any album he appears on is of interest.

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High Fidelity
John S. Wilson : April 1960

The guitarist brother of Monk and Buddy Montgomery (until recently one half of The Mastersounds) has a quiet, temperate attack, gets a mellow sound from his strings, and has a thoughtful manner of constructing solos. He has, moreover, an ear for good material as is evidenced by this program. But all these merits are dimmed in this collection by the fact that his accompaniment (organ and drums) has a dim, mushy quality which clouds his guitar work and, since the accompanists are routine performers, produces a needlessly tedious atmosphere.

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Minneapolis Star Tribune
Charles Hanna : 02/07/1960
Jazz Thrives on Togetherness

There are probably few fields of artistic endeavor that have as much family participation as jazz. There are the Jones boys, Hank (piano), Thad (cornet) and Elvin (drums).

There are the Adderleys, Julian (alto sax) and Nat (cornet). The Brubecks, Dave and Howard, the Dorseys and Goodmans and the Condolis, Erroll and Linton Garner, Nat and Ike Cole. How many more?

Monk and Buddy Montgomery (one-half of the Mastersounds) have had their family name mostly to themselves, but that’s all over with the release of brother Wes‘ new album.

The Wes Montgomery Trio (Riverside) is more than just a “dynamic new jazz sound” as the liner suggests. It’s positively enrapturing. After the first track I was hooked. After track two I moved closer to a spot in front of the speakers. After track three it was Wes Montgomery’s day.

It’s all the more amazing when you learn that this 36-year-old Indianapolis, Ind., guitarist didn’t begin teaching himself the instrument until he was 19.

Early a disciple of the Charlie Christian school of guitarists, Montgomery has since far removed himself from the Christian style of playing.

Most nights he works with organist Melvin Rhyne and drummer Paul Parker in Indianapolis’ Turf club and at the Missile Room after hours.

Buddy and Monk worked the Turf room with Wes before they went to the west coast several years ago. Wes, with six children, stayed behind. With the exception of a couple of recordings with his brothers, Wes’ work has not been widely heard.

The sound he achieves with his pick-less right hand is remarkably warm and exciting. His melodic ideas are cleanly executed in octaves and chorded solos, a double-barrel technique that many guitarists would never attempt.

It’s a fascinating package of lush and deep-hued sounds.

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Oakland Tribune
Russ Wilson : 12/20/1959
Montgomery Trio Brings Fresh Sound To Jazz

A fresh sound in jazz, compounded by an extraordinary guitarist, an organist and a drummer, gets its first recording on The Wes Montgomery Trio (Riverside). Guitarist Montgomery is a brother of The Mastersounds’ Buddy and Monk. He and his colleagues, Melvin Rhyne and Paul Parker, recently played at the Jazz Workshop in Westbay. Their album, which includes ballads and swingers, furnishes a good example of the group’s close rapport and of Wesley’s unusual style, but only hints at the excitement the trio can generate. Best example of this comes on Jingles. Unfortunately the number is marred by over-recorded sound from the drums.

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San Francisco Examiner
C.H. Garrigues : 01/10/1960

Wes is the “other” Montgomery brother; on the basis of this record, plus his recent appearance at the Jazz Workshop, he promises to outshine Monk and Buddy on the West Coast as he seems to have done in the East.

The fact is that Wes is a jazz guitarist with a new sound perhaps the first new sound in jazz guitar since Charlie Christian. His technique is phenomenal; so far as I know, no jazz guitarist has matched it. His sense of rhythm is strong and, more important, his sense of cadence is stronger. Even the jazz organ which makes up a part of the trio cannot intrude.

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Down Beat : 01/21/1960
Ralph J. Gleason : 4 stars

It seems unquestionable that Montgomery is the very best guitarist to arrive on the scene in a decade and may very well end up ranking with all of the great players on his instrument. He has the electric quality, that special gift of making whatever he does come alive, that marks the true artist.

More than that, he has a highly developed sense of form. His solos build beautifully to climax after climax, and all of it (as with Dizzy, for instance) contributes in its form to the strength of the swinging.

His lyric playing, on such tunes as Whisper Not (that lovely Benny Golson ballad) is very effective: he transmits emotion with startling directness. ‘Round Midnight is also the sort of performance one can hear again and again and gain more from it each time.

On the basis of Montgomery’s work this would be a 5 star LP, but unfortunately the rest of the trio does not measure up to his standard, and the final effect is just short of 5 stars. Both the drummer and organist are good and both are promising. It would not be surprising if they developed into first rank jazz men soon.

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Liner Notes by Orrin Keepnews

When you hear stories about some fabulous musician playing fantastic jazz in glorious obscurity somewhere out in the wilderness, the best advice – in at least nine cases out of ten – is to assume that the myth must have outdistanced the facts and forget about it. But even better advice is: watch out for that tenth man! As proof of this, take the case of Wes Montgomery. For Wes is very definitely a tenth man, if ever there was one.

Montgomery is, to put it bluntly, a jazz guitarist unlike any other you have ever heard. Self-taught, playing without a pick, he apparently just never knew that it isn’t possible to play octaves and block chords on this instrument and therefore he does play them, in some of the most astonishing solos imaginable. This does not mean that he is a mere technical trickster; very much on the contrary, he plays with a fire and depth and soul that is equally astonishing. And in this guitar-organ-drums trio he has developed a rich and strikingly distinctive sound that is sure to make a great many people listen hard, and listen often.

I first heard about Wes in no uncertain terms and twice on the same day: to be precise, on September 17, 1959. Actually, the signs had been there for quite some time for those who had been able to read them (appearances on a record or two with his brothers Monk and Buddy, who form the nucleus of the group called “The Mastersounds”; a vote for Wes as new-star guitarist by Ralph Gleason in the Down Beat Critics Poll some two years ago; lots of musicians in New York who informed me after the fact that they had always known about Montgomery and had always been knocked out by his playing). But for me it started when Cannonball Adderley, just back in New York after a tour on which he had spent one day in Montgomery’s home town of Indianapolis, charged into the Riverside office and announced, in a monologue that went something like this: “There’s this guitarist in Indianapolis… you’ve got to get him for the label… Here’s his phone number.”

Cannonball, I have come to know, is one of the sounder and least-easily-flipped judges of jazz talent around. His excitement would have been quite enough for me. But as it happened, in the issue of The Jazz Review that I picked up later the same day, there was composer-musician-critic Gunther Schuller, normally an objective and calmly analytical writer, describing the same Wes Montgomery in superlatives usually used only by the writers of album notes: “extraordinarily spectacular… unbearably exciting… purity of creative ideas… unfailing dramatic effectiveness.”

Five days later, I was in Indianapolis, spending some eight hours at the Turf Bar (Montgomery’s regular-hours job) and the Missile Room (where he regularly continued after hours). Long before the night was over I knew that Adderley and Schuller had not been guilty of exaggeration. I had heard not only the ‘impossible’ things Wes consistently does on guitar, but also the remarkable unity of this trio, and what Schuller calls “the unreserved joy and excitement” communicated by these three musicians who “thrive on each other.”

Possibly not absolutely all of the relaxed excitement and brilliant creative interplay of the group has been captured on their first recording as a unit. But I do know that a very substantial amount of their special qualities is to be heard here. Certainly there is the fascinating and moving sound built by the blend of Montgomery’s unorthodox guitar style and Rhyne‘s lean, swinging, equally non-conventional approach to the organ backed by Parker‘s restrained, alert drumming; and the awesome impact of the truly unique Montgomery solo work. Despite the leader’s incredible dexterity (sitting quite close to him, I discovered that even 20-20 vision wasn’t good enough to keep his right thumb from blurring before my eyes), the trio leans towards a tempo range best described as medium-to-moody. Only Too Late Now is strictly in ballad tempo, but both Thelonious Monk‘s ‘Round Midnight and Benny Golson‘s Whisper Not are taken not much faster than that and are treated with soulful and almost breath-taking beauty. The two originals by Wes (Jingles and Missile Blues) and particularly – and rather unexpectedly – the Jerome Kern standard, Yesterdays, are in a robustly earthy vein, Ellington‘s Satin Doll swings with all the delicacy that the tune’s title would seem to call for; and finger-popping versions of The End of a Love Affair and Horace Silver‘s Ecorah are as up-tempo as things get to be here.

Surprisingly enough Wes Montgomery was nineteen years old before he first turned to music. He recalls that (not at all surprisingly) it was hearing Charlie Christian on records in 1942 that first sparked his interest in the guitar; six months later, he began to play professionally. Except for two years with Lionel Hampton (1948-50, when the band also included Fats Navarro and Charlie Mingus), Wes has mostly stayed close to Indianapolis, largely because of a family that includes six children. For a number of years the three Montgomery brothers worked together at the Turf Bar; when the others left for the West Coast, Wes stayed on the job. There was also the after-hours spot (and for a while, a variety of non-musical daytime jobs, too!), and it was when the late-night Missile Room installed an organ early in ’59 that the present trio really came into being.

Melvin Rhyne was a pianist “who had fooled around with organ some”; apparently this is a clue to his development of a lithe, angular, pianistic organ style, with a firm left-foot bass line but without either the overripe sound or the heavy-handed chomping that besets so much jazz organ playing. Paul Parker, a sure-handed and swinging young drummer, is like Rhyne an Indianapolis native in his early twenties. Working steadily together, and holding to Wes’s precept that “good taste” must be a primary consideration at all times, the three have built a unit of rare cohesiveness.

As for Montgomery’s own ‘impossible’ style, he makes its emergence seem most casual. In 1949, he says, he began tuning up with octaves; about a year later he tried playing a melodic line in octaves, and found he could do it. Next he experimented with chorded solos (“after all, it can be done on piano”). Wes notes also that “for ideas” he listens, not to other guitarists, but to horn men: above all, to Charlie Parker and more recently to John Coltrane. It all sounds simple, but when you add the obvious fact that here is an artist of truly superior jazz feeling and skill, you must conclude that the rather belated ‘discovery’ of Wes Montgomery is an event of great excitement and importance.