In his skyrocketing but tragically brief career (his first album as a leader came late in 1959; he died of a heart attack in 1968), Wes Montgomery completely revolutionized jazz guitar. But when first discovered, he was working in the basic guitar-organ-drums "bar band" format, and it remained a setting in which he always felt comfortable and creatively free. His first Riverside sessions (now OJCCD-034-2) and his last (OJCCD-144-2) were in this vein, but the present album–a 1963 date on which he is joined by hometown colleague Mel Rhyne on organ and spurred by a peak performance from drummer Jimmy Cobb–is widely regarded as the most fully effective of its kind.

with Mel Rhyne, Jimmy Cobb