A Musical Tribute to Wes

To celebrate the centennial of the great American jazz guitarist, Ray Legnini and Eric Montgomery (no relation) take on the classic “Bumpin’ On Sunset”.

Ray Legnini: For this arrangement of Wes Montgomery’s classic “Bumpin’ On Sunset,’ we recorded using the Logic Pro DAW in each of our studios. This allows us the flexibility of trying ideas for parts, tempo, etc. while retaining the interactive nature of the recording process. 

We wanted to keep that classic 1960s vibe from the original, its droning pedal point bass line and loved the idea of using strings with the tremolo articulation. They all complement the mood. We took some liberties with our version, too. The original bridge section is used as the intro, and we expanded a few of the chords that all play over the bass pedal point for some harmonic variety in the solo sections. 

The guitar you hear is my 1970s-era blonde Gibson L-5 archtop, which instantly has the classic Wes sound as soon as you play the first note. And, no amps were harmed in the making of this recording. The guitar sound you hear was recorded direct. 

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