Wes Montgomery Chord Solo Transcription: ‘Round Midnight

The Wes Montgomery Trio

With all the recent talk around here about block chords, I thought today we would go direct to the horses mouth, or should I say the master’s guitar. Wes Montgomery tastefully combines single lines, octaves, and block chords with incredible phrasing and time feel to create a most compelling style. We can (and will) learn tons of stuff from Wes in coming posts. For now though we will look at his classic chord solo on ’round midnight. I have the entire solo transcribed, but have decided that the chord solo is most relevant to this blog. I am quite sure it is accurate, having transcribed it first in 1995, and re-transcribing it in the past few days to correct the magnitude of errors from my first attempt. Also note that this solo is over the bridge of ’round midnight and there is a fair amount or re-harmonization going on. Don’t let this stop you from pulling it apart and stealing ideas and licks that you like and making them a part of YOUR playing. Ok, lets get right into it.