The 1961 Gibson L-5 CES Custom that Wes Montgomery is pictured with on the album Movin’ Wes brought $41,125 at auction last month by Massachusetts based Skinner, Inc., a sale price that exceeded expectations.

The guitar (No. 38024), which was later owned by jazz great George Benson, was used by Montgomery on the ’64 classicMovin’ Wes as well as the albums Goin’ Out of My Head (1965) and A Day In the Life (1967). It sports a Florentine cutaway and was estimated to bring up to $30,000.

Sides Played

Bio Information

 on the show

John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery

(6 March 1925 - 15 June 1968)

Mr. Montgomery was an American jazz guitarist. He is generally considered one of the major jazz guitarists, emerging after such seminal figures as Django Reinhardt and Charlie Christian and influencing countless others, including Pat Martino and Pat Metheny. Montgomery often approached solos in a three-tiered manner: He would begin a repeating progression with single note lines, derived from scales or modes.

After a fitting number of sequences, he would play octaves for a few more sequences, finally culminating with arpeggiated chords. Instead of using a guitar pick, Montgomery plucked the strings with the fleshy part of his thumb, using downstrokes for single notes and a combination of upstrokes and downstrokes for chords and octaves.

Gerry Eastman is a guitarist/bassist composer who has worked with an eclectic group of artists. As far back as the early 70's, he worked with groups such as Orleans and later as a jazz musician with ensembles such as the Count Basie Band, Jimmy Owens, Frank Foster, Nancy Wilson, Archie Shepp and a host of other musicians all over the United States.

Mr. Eastman also started a not for profit 501(c) organization that established the WMC record label, taught jazz studies and promoted musicians throughout the eastern seaboard.

Mr. Eastman has his own club in Brooklyn NY. Pay him a visit by surfing to his website.

“Ahmadification”

For more information about Mr. Brown

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Steve Brown Professor Music Performance
School of Music

M.M., B.S., Ithaca College. Performances with Chuck Israels, Billy Hart, Gerry Niewood, Ben Riley, Claudio Roditi, Bill Goodwin, Marian McPartland, Jimmy Smith, Barry Harris. Concerts and clinics throughout the U.S., Canada, Spain, Portugal, France, Turkey. Recordings as sideman with Chuck Mangione; the National Jazz Ensemble; Full, Faith, and Credit; Danny D’Imperio; Steve Gilmore. Recordings as leader, Good Lines and Child’s Play (Cafe Records), Night Waves and Cross Roads (Brown Cats Productions).

Featured artist, Impressions of Point Lobos, by Ray Brown Great Big Band (Brown Cats Productions). Coauthor with Ray Brown, An Introduction to Jazz Improvisation (book and recording). Author, Jazz Solos for Guitar, vol. 1. Newly published big band pieces include Catch Phrase and Two Birds, One Stone (Kendor Music).

Some of the guest artists featured with the Mr. Brown's bands over the years are Marian McPartland, Walter White, Thad Jones, Peter Leitch, Phil Woods, John Stowell, Andy LaVerne, Bob Sneider, Gary Smulyan, Steve Wilson, Jeff Ballard, Chuck Israels, Stephanie Nakasian, Tom Harrell, Hal Galper, Marvin Stamm, and many others.

Akua Dixon  in New York, NY) is an internationally renowned cellist, recording artist, arranger, and educator.

A native of New York City, Akua Dixon,, has performed with Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie, B.B. King, James Brown, Busta Rhymes, Mary J. Blige and many others. She is the leader of Quartette Indigo and was the founding cellist in the Uptown String Quartet. Akua supplied the string arrangements for the five-Grammy award winning CD, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and Aretha Franklins Grammy-nominated A Rose Is Still A Rose. She has conducted for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. Akua has received several awards from The National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation (The Opera of Marie Laveau). She has lectured at the Smithsonian and is the 1998 recipient of the African American Classical Music Award.

Ms. Dixon's swinging strings have taken her to performances nationally and internationally at concert halls and colleges, public schools and libraries; at jazz festivals in Chicago , Hawaii , Berlin , St. Lucia, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Martinique, and Guadaloupe.
She has performed with many notable artists including: Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Sammy Davis Jr., Diana Ross, Bob Hope, the Temptations, Marvin Gaye, and Liza Minnelli.

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