Richie Hart - Remembering Wes (1991/2020)

Jazz has always been full of tribute albums, but too often they are merely a re-creation of a player's style rather than an expansion on it. Unfortunately, this session succumbs to the same pattern. Richie Hart is a very good jazz guitarist, but he is almost indistinguishable from Wes Montgomery. Hart actually sounds more like him than George Benson or Lee Ritenour. It is doubtful that Montgomery himself could have played "Remembering Wes" or "Into Your Soul" any prettier than Hart does, but the recurring question is, why listen to an imitation when you can hear the real thing? "Be-Bop Revisited" is the most original-sounding of the songs here and displays Hart's plentiful chops. Being able to play in the shadow of Wes Montgomery is an impressive accomplishment, but there is very little here that cannot be heard on any of Montgomery's recordings. Regardless, this is still a very good jazz guitar recording.