Song Rig

West Coast Blues

Wes Montgomery · The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery · 1960

Tone Overview

What Makes This Sound Unique

Wes's blues influence made explicit — a minor blues that shows the connection between his jazz vocabulary and the blues tradition. The L-5 tone is slightly darker here than Four on Six, with the neck pickup providing maximum warmth for the slow, expressive lines.

Signal Chain

1Gibson L-5CES (neck pickup predominantly)
2Fender small combo (very clean)

Amp Settings

Gain / Volume2

Bass7

Mid7

Treble5

Reverb3

Darker tone than Four on Six — West Coast Blues uses the most bass-heavy, warm setting in the Wes Montgomery catalog. The low treble and high bass create the round, almost cello-like quality of his slow blues playing.

Technique

How to Play It

Jazz-blues octave melody — Wes's signature octave technique applied to 12-bar blues creates phrases that sound simultaneously like single notes (melodic line) and chord tones (the octave harmony), giving solo guitar the textural richness of a duo.

Budget Alternative

Achievable With

L-5 or ES-175 → clean amp → right-hand thumb technique → practice playing any pentatonic blues lick in octaves: fret the note normally, then add the same note one octave up on the adjacent string (skipping one string between).

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