"West Coast Blues" is one of Wes Montgomery's most inventive original compositions, a blues in B-flat major played in waltz time that appears on his 1960 album The Incredible Jazz Guitar. The 12-bar blues in three-quarter time was a fresh concept that demonstrated Montgomery's compositional imagination, the waltz feel giving the familiar blues form an unexpected elegance. Montgomery's nine-chorus guitar solo at 154 beats per minute is among his most inspired improvisations, the interaction between the blues vocabulary and the waltz rhythm generating musical ideas that neither context alone would produce. His signature octave technique is particularly effective here, the rhythmic displacement of octave passages against the three-beat pulse creating a compelling cross-rhythmic tension. Tommy Flanagan follows with three choruses of piano improvisation, his playing sensitive to the unique rhythmic character of the piece. Bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath maintain the waltz groove with the kind of rhythmic flexibility that allows the music to breathe naturally. "West Coast Blues" has become a standard in the jazz guitar repertoire, its innovative concept and beautiful melody inspiring countless interpretations. The composition's title may reference Montgomery's Indiana origins relative to the West Coast jazz movement, but its musical personality transcends any regional identification.
