1. Wind Song (For Carlos) (Dave Alpert/Nick Ceruli/John Pisano/Paul Francis Webster)
  2. Georgia On My Mind (Hoagy Carmichael/Stuart Gorrell)
  3. The Other Man’s Grass (Is Always Greener) (Tony Hatch/Jackie Trent)
  4. Down Here on The Ground (Lalo Schifrin/Gale Garnett)
  5. Up and At It (Wes Montgomery)
  6. Goin’ On to Detroit (Wes Montgomery)
  7. I Say A Little Prayer (Burt Bacharach/Hal David)
  8. When I Look in Your Eyes (from Doctor Dolittle) (Leslie Bricusse)
  9. Know It All (Quem Diz Que Sabe) (João Donato/Paulo Sergio Valle)
  10. The Fox (Lalo Schifrin)

Bonus

11. Pata Pata (Miriam Makeba/Jerry Ragavoy)
12. Butterfly (Wes Montgomery)

Wes Montgomery – guitar
Herbie Hancock – piano
Ron Carter – bass
Grady Tate – drums
Bobby Rosengarden, Ray Barretto – percussion
Mike Mainieri – vibes
Hubert Laws, George Marge, Romeo Penque – flutes and oboe
Gene Orloff, Raoul Poliakin – violins
George Ricci – cello
Emanuel Vardi – viola

Produced by Creed Taylor

Arranged and conducted by Don Sebesky and Eumir Deodato (04, 08)

Tracks 01-10: Originally issued as A&M SP 3006
              also issued as AQUI EN EL SUELO (A&M/Hispavox HAD 371-16 [Spain]) and
              EL ARTE DE WES MONTGOMERY (A&M AML/S-1005 [Mexico])
Tracks 11-12: Originally issued on CLASSICS VOLUME 22 (A&M CD-2520) and GREATEST HITS (A&M 31454 0519 2)

Recorded on December 20 (06, 07) and December 21 (05, 09-12), 1967, and January 22 (01, 02) and January 26 (08), 1968, at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 04 recorded on either December 21, 1967, or January 22, 1968. 03 recorded on either January 22 or January 26, 1968.

01 published by Almo Music Corporation (ASCAP)
02 published by Peermusic III Ltd. (BMI)
03 published by Universal Music Corporation (ASCAP)
04 and 10 published by Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp. (BMI)
05, 06 and 12 published by Taggie Music Co. (BMI)
07 published by BMG Rights Management (UK) Limited/New Hidden Valley Music Co./Songs of Fujimusic (ASCAP)
08 published by EMI Hastings Catalog, Inc. (BMI)
09 published by Little A Music/Tijuca Music Co./Unichappell Music, Inc. (BMI)
11 published by Abekam Music/Bike Music/Budde Songs, Inc./Lovolar Music (BMI)

(P) 1967, 1987, 1996

By the time Down Here on the Ground was released in April 1968 – a mere two months before the guitarist’s untimely death – a clear pattern had emerged for Wes Montgomery records, if not for most of the Creed Taylor productions of this period: a program of radio-friendly numbers, derived mostly from contemporary AM radio hits, with a bravura centerpiece (usually the title track) and the odd original or jazz standard to spice up the mix. For Montgomery’s sequel to A Day in the Life, he again fronts a rhythm section featuring pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Grady Tate in settings provided by Don Sebesky and, despite a surprising lack of Beatles tunes, many other familiar factors remain in place.

But this time, there are several tasty twists. First, Sebesky perfects his collaboration with the guitarist by paring down the orchestrations to a trio of woodwinds and a string quartet. Then, there is the introduction of a new arranger, Brazilian pianist and composer Eumir Deodato, in the very first of his CTI appearances, for the album’s title track and “Know it All.” Another surprise is the album’s opener, the somewhat unknown yet vaguely familiar “Wind Song,” which in a former life was known as “For Carlos” on the Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album S. R. O. (1966). While the tune’s provenance suggests “paying the rent,” “Wind Song” is admirably suited to the guitarist – and to be fair, Montgomery had earlier performed two TJB songs on California Dreaming. Here, he sails magically over the changes with able support from the rhythm section and one of Sebesky’s breeziest arrangements. The all-too brief “Georgia on My Mind,” a first take, presents the guitarist at his very best and may constitute the album’s greatest two and three-quarter minutes. Montgomery leavens his performance with an understanding and intuition that suggests years of honing, despite this recording – which Billboard rightly said “transcends musical categories”1 – being the only version he ever waxed. (Several years later, Creed Taylor would produce Grover Washington, Jr.’s version of the song, also with Ron Carter.) Wes swings with charismatic verve on the only two tunes here from the pop parade: Petulia Clark’s “The Other Man’s Grass” and Dionne Warwick’s “I Say A Little Prayer,” with Ron Carter’s magnificent walking bass being a particular highlight.

Not since his early Verve days had Creed Taylor loaded one of his productions with as many film themes as heard here. One of three film tunes on the album, “Down Here on the Ground” is derived from Lalo Schifrin’s main theme to the 1967 hit film Cool Hand Luke. The song was first recorded – with lyrics, under this title – by Gogi Grant, but was popularized by Lou Rawls. It is probably Eumir Deodato’s near-waltz like arrangement that inspired such jazz readings of the tune by Oscar Peterson and Jimmy Smith, as well as fellow guitarists Grant Green, George Benson and Jimmy Ponder. The second Schifrin movie theme, “The Fox,” was recorded before the 1968 film of the same name was even released. Although Mark Rydell’s beautiful film adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel never caught on, the reflective song, evoking the sadness of loss and uncertainty, gets a particularly poignant reading from the guitarist who himself had only months left to live. For “When I Look in Your Eyes,” from the 1967 film musical Doctor Dolittle, Sebesky pairs the guitarist with the string quartet and woodwinds for an unusual but appealing third-stream performance.

The first of two Montgomery originals, “Up and At It,”2 known from the earlier A Day in the Life sessions as “Switchin’,” gets a typically effervescent reading from the guitarist and Don Sebesky’s classic strings-and-vibes counterpoint mirroring Wes’ octaves.3 The song has been sampled several times, notably by Greyboy in 1993 for the ironically-titled “On the Down Low” and Japanese vocalist Bird in 1999 as part of her CD single “Beats.” The more reflective “Goin’ on to Detroit”4 begins as though suggesting Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage,” particularly in Ramsey Lewis’ reading. The tune is one of the guitarist’s more soulful numbers, curiously pitching Hancock between his own “Maiden Voyage”-like patterns with funkier “Cantaloupe Island” touches on the bridge. The summery samba “Know it All (Quem Diz Que Sabe),” by João Donato and arranger Deodato’s frequent collaborator Paulo Valle, was likely brought to the session by the song’s arranger, Deodato, who had also worked on the song’s debut on the little-known Quarteto 004 album Retrato em Branco e Prêto (which also featured contributions by Antonio Carlos Jobim). Tamba 4 later covered the song on their album Samba Blim.

While DownBeat magazine was often critical and dismissive of Montgomery’s Verve records, Dan Morgenstern was effusive with praise in his review of Down Here on the Ground: “This splendid album is, I guess, what the purists would call ‘commercial.’ … At the risk of being labeled a middle-brow philistine, I’ll take the commercial concept. You see, I believe in communication … it’s a superior package.”5 Part and parcel of Morgenstern’s praise is a rebuke to naysayers who equate commercial success with artistic decline. “[O]ne of jazz’ most harmful myths,” wrote Morgenstern, “is that if…it sells, some mysterious change takes place; art is tainted by success.” Wes Montgomery, who was very successful at the time, particularly for a jazz artist, “is not one iota less the artist he was when only his fellow musicians and a few of the uninitiated knew that he was great. If anything, he is even better.” The review appeared days after the guitarist’s death by heart attack.

Fellow guitarist Pat Martino considers Down Here on the Ground to be one the most influential jazz guitar albums of all time, noting that the title song, in particular, “is about the closest thing that I have heard that any guitar player has ever done to achieve the kind of melodic playing that Miles (Davis) did.” He continues: “It is so specific and there is so much information in each note. Playing simple to me is way harder than playing complicated. With all aspects of Wes’ playing, and there are many things we could talk about, the thing that strikes me and inspires me is how he could play simple and make it sound so beautiful and so deep.”6

Down Here on the Ground reached number one on Billboard’s Jazz album chart, number 4 on the Soul /R&B chart and, by August 1968, and a remarkable number 38 on the Billboard 200. In 1969, the album was nominated for a Grammy Award, losing out to Duke Ellington’s Billy Strayhorn tribute, “…And His Mother Called Him Bill.”

About the cover: “Portugal Reflection” (1966). This stunning photo captures two houses in Portugal and their reflection in the roof of a very clean blue car – much like Turner’s “Reflected Rocks” on the cover of Jackie & Roy’s 1974 disc A Wilder Alias. The reflection makes the houses appear as though reflected in water – an ironic visual mirage that perfectly contrasts the album’s landlocked title. “Portugal Reflection” was used again (although cropped differently) for the Victor Feldman Trio disc, Together Again, issued in Japan only in 1978:

It’s difficult, however, to interpret Down Here on the Ground‘s back-sleeve photo of Wes Montgomery here (mirrored in Norman Seeff’s photo of Quincy Jones on the 1975 album Mellow Madness): contemplation, quiet joy, private despair or mere exhaustion? The back-sleeve of the posthumous Road Song, from the same photo session, suggests the answer might be a little of it all. Montgomery sat for the photos only a few months before he died.

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Endnotes:

  1. Billboard, April 27, 1968, p. 75. ↩︎
  2. Cannonball Adderley recorded a cover of “Up and At It” with brother Nat and H.B. Barnum’s Orchestra in an arrangement by producer David Axelrod for the album Accent on Africa (Capitol ST-2987, 1968) on June 13, 1968, a mere two days before the guitarist’s sudden death. ↩︎
  3. For a variation of this theme, listen to Don Sebesky’s “Sweet Talk” from the Sebesky-arranged The Warm World of Jack Sheldon (Dot DLP 25908, 1968). ↩︎
  4. Early pressings of the album listed “Goin’ on to Detroit” on the jacket spine as the album’s title, even as the cover and label listed the actual title. ↩︎
  5. Dan Morgenstern, “Wes Montgomery: Down Here on the Ground” review, DownBeat, June 27, 1968, pp. 28-29. It is possible that Morgenstern’s focus on “communication” here is an ironic nod to the famous line from Cool Hand Luke, whose main theme gives this album its name: “What we have here is a failure to communicate.” ↩︎
  6. Barth, Joe, Voices in Jazz Guitar, (Mel Bay, Pacific, Mo., 2006), pp 318-19. ↩︎