Echoes Of Indiana Avenue is the name of a new Wes Montgomery album with previously unreleased material of the legendary guitarist. The CD was released by Resonance Records on 6th March this year, on this artist’s 88th birthday.
It took 18 months to prepare the material, which consists of Montgomery’s earliest performances in 1957 and 1958, recorded in clubs of Indianapolis, his hometown; and of some rare studio recordings made before his debut release for Riverside Records in 1959.
The audio tapes were found in 1990 and digital transfers were made. The discoverer Jim Greeninger unsuccessfully tried to sell them on eBay. In 2008, he finally got in touch with Michael Cuscun, legendary producer who’s opus, among others, counts many releases for Blue Note Records.
Cuscun spent a lot of time and effort in discovering when and how the tapes were recorded. He found out that the rest of the musicians were drumer Paul Parker, keyboardist Melvin Rhyne, pianist Earl Van Riper, bassist Mingo Jones and drumer Sonny Johnson, as well as Montgomery’s brothers: Monk on accoustic bass and Budy on piano.
Echoes Of Indiana Avenue has nine songs, among whom are Shorty Rogers’ Diablo’s Dance, Erroll Garner’s Misty, Billy Strayhorn’s Take The A Train, and jazz standards Darn That Dream and Body And Soul.
In addition to the fully restored compositions, the 24 page deluxe digipack showcases rare Wess family photos and photographs taken by the iconic jazz photographer Duncan Scheidt. Jazz journalists Dan Morgenstern and Bill Milkowski contributed essays as well as David N. Baker, the key catalyst of the project.
Here you can listen to Wes Montgomery’s album Boss Guitar, released 5 years before his early death on this day in 1968. He died at age of 45.