Even for an accomplished musician like Wes Montgomery, covering \u201cA Day In The Life\u201d as an instrumental and making it the title of his latest album in 1967 were risky endeavors. <\/p>\n
The jazz guitarist, known for his frequent use of octaves, leaped into pop territory here — and didn\u2019t even look in one major instance. He had not listened to The Beatles\u2019 powerful closing track on Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i>. Despite all of this, A Day In The Life <\/i>was the best-selling jazz album of 1967 (the success proved to be a bummer for some fans, who abandoned Montgomery for going pop.)<\/p>\n
It\u2019s strange not hearing any lyrics to \u201cA Day In The Life,\u201d but the song doesn\u2019t suffer. This is both a testament to the strength of Lennon\/McCartney\u2019s songwriting and Montgomery\u2019s wistful phrasing. Don Sebesky\u2019s orchestration is the other important element, providing a fierce ending to the track. <\/p>\n
Montgomery\u2019s other Beatles cover, \u201cEleanor Rigby,\u201d is a bit more obvious, but it is certainly more upbeat than the original recording on Revolver<\/i>, thanks to the inclusion of Grady Tate\u2019s drumming. I was particularly impressed by the middle section, in which Montgomery elevates his playing without losing the sadness of the piece.<\/p>\n
Seven of the remaining eight tracks are also instrumental covers, perhaps the most recognizable being Percy Sledge\u2019s immortal R&B hit \u201cWhen A Man Loves A Woman.\u201d I was quite skeptical when I saw it on the track listing, but Montgomery is smart enough to know he\u2019s not packing as much soul as Sledge. So he takes a subtler route, his riffing a quiet emotion by the track\u2019s conclusion. Whereas on \u201cCalifornia Dreaming\u201d Montgomery is the clear highlight of the song, cutting through the instrumentation of his companions — pianist Herbie Hancock among them –and sliding into your ears. <\/p>\n
\u201cAngel\u201d is the lone original instrumental on this disc. Although the song improves as time elapses, its pop structure leaves a lot to be desired when compared to the covers. If \u201cAngel\u201d had been left out, we would have missed out on some neat riffs, but the album itself would have been tighter. <\/p>\n
The allure of A Day In The Life <\/i>is how Montgomery might make you remember a pop song differently. Sometimes I find myself hearing his guitar playing on \u201cWhen A Man Loves A Woman\u201d instead of Sledge\u2019s voice, which is almost absurd. But that\u2019s the effect Wes can have on you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":29754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8271],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41361","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-wes-montgomery","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41361"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}