Each month I go back into my record collection or download or find in some way a recording that I may have missed along the way or need to rediscover its musical message.  This month I am digging back into the 1963 Fantasy recording of Wes Montgomery called Fusion.  This was before the days when Wes would have all of the lush strings behind him while he was playing pop tunes of the day like Windy.

I was at John Levy’s house in LA this past fall and he told me that this was the first recording that Wes actually did with strings (he should know as he was there at the session).  Wes’ playing is so honest and pure on this recording – while it is not sonically the best record ever produced, it has an intimacy about it you don’t hear in the more produced recordings Wes did with strings later in his career.  I selected the track “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning”.