Wes Montgomery was unquestionably the most significant jazz guitarist to emerge during the 1960s. He was probably the most influential postwar improviser on the guitar. The jazz guitar of Wes Montgomery, deemed "the biggest, warmest, fattest sound on record," still reverberates today, nearly forty years after his death. Wes re-invented the instrument with his thumb-plucking technique, his innovative approach to playing octaves, and his inventive, masterful execution of complex lines. In the short span of a 9 year recording career as a leader, his name became synonymous with the jazz guitar.