Wes Montgomery's A Day In The Life: The Anatomy of a Jazz-Pop Crossover Album

Abstract

Abstract Wes Montgomery was one of the few jazz musicians in the mid-1960s to achieve crossover success in the popular marketplace. Like other jazz artists at the time, the guitarist chose to pack his albums with interpretations of current pop hits. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, Montgomery embraced a savvy producer, Creed Taylor, who molded the overall sound of his recordings for maximum impact in the pop marketplace. Their partnership did indeed yield several commercially successful albums during this time period, the most popular of which was the 1967 release A Day In The Life. The primary purpose of this article is to examine this album and parse the reasons for its commercial success. Through detailed musical analysis of A Day In The Life, we can see the creation of the new genre of “jazz-pop,” one that was viable in the popular marketplace at a time when traditional jazz was marginalized. Furthermore, Wes Montgomery’s A Day In The Life represents a seminal example of modern crossover jazz, making detailed understanding of this work crucial to a jazz historiography that has, in recent years, been expanded to include more commercialized forms.