Movin' Along - Wes Montgomery

Movin' Along is guitarist Wes Montgomery's third album for Riverside Records, released in 1960, the same year as The Incredible Jazz Guitar. The quintet features James Clay on tenor saxophone and flute, Victor Feldman on piano, Sam Jones on bass, and Louis Hayes on drums — the rhythm section borrowed from Cannonball Adderley's working group. The seven-track program mixes standards like "Body and Soul" and "Tune Up" with Montgomery originals and Clifford Brown's "Sandu." The session has the feel of a relaxed blowing date, with Montgomery and Clay trading solos over the rhythm section's swinging, cohesive support. Montgomery plays both guitar and electric bass on the album, and Clay's flute adds tonal variety alongside his tenor saxophone work. Montgomery's signature octave technique is prominent throughout, producing the warm, horn-like guitar sound that distinguished him from every other guitarist of the era. Contemporary critics noted that the album captured Montgomery's swinging, spontaneous approach more successfully than many of his studio recordings — he was known to feel that his playing in the studio never quite matched his live performances. Montgomery's recording career had begun only a year earlier, when he was already in his mid-thirties, and he would die of a heart attack in 1968 at forty-five.