All That Jazz: Jazz Guitar Version

Wes Montgomery : Four On Six

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Pat Martino : Impressions

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Larry Carlton : Emotions Wound Us So

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Hey, I didn't have to wait long at all before I could share Four On Six with you (2 days, to be exact). This is one of Wes Montgomery's best tunes.

I introduced you to Pat Martino during Circuses and Carnivals week this summer. What an incredible and inspiring guitarist he is. Here is his 197 version of John Coltrane's Impressions.

Finally is the most emo guitar song I think I know, one that is appropriately named: Emotions Wound Us So. It starts out gently with keyboards, then Carlton's expressive jazz fusion guitar starts up, and I'm quickly gone to another emotional state….

Maybe I'm crying over other favorite guitarists I didn't get to include, like Jeff Beck, George Benson, Kenny Burrell, Al DiMeola, Grant Green, Jim Hall, Earl Klugh, Pat Metheny, Joe Pass, Django Reinhart, and Lee Ritenour.

Circuses and Carnivals: Send in the Clowns

Pat Martino: Send in the Clowns

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Send in the Clowns, now a jazz standard but originally a 1973 show tune by Stephen Sondheim, is a slow, regretful ballad. This guitar version by Pat Martino, one of my new favorite artists (and I can't believe this is the first I've posted by him!), brings out the most soulful, introspective nuances of the song.

Martino has an astounding musical history: a prominent guitarist by 1980, he suffered an aneurism followed by brain surgery that caused him to lose all memory of how to play guitar. Painstakingly, he relearned, regaining his former abilities the hard way. You'd be hard-pressed to hear the difference between his "before" and "after" recordings unless you looked at the date. This one is from 1976.