Wes speaks about his influences

The following are excerpts from an article which appeared in the July 20, 1961 issue of Downbeat magazine.  In it, Wes talks to the article's author, Ralph Gleason, about some of his influences and contemporaries playing jazz guitar.
 

I got interested in playing the guitar because of Charlie Christian.  Like all other guitar players!  There's no way out.  I never saw him in my life but he said so much on the records that I don't care what instrument a cat played, if he didn't understand and didn't feel and really didn't get with the things that Charlie Christian was doing, he was a pretty poor musician--he was so far ahead.

Before Charlie Christian I liked (Django) Reinhardt and Les Paul and those cats, but it wasn't what you'd call new.  Just guitar.  For the exciting, the new thing they didn't impress me like that.  But Charlie Christian did.  I mean he stood out above all of it to me.
 

Other guitar players?  Well, Barney Kessel.  I've got to go for that.  He's got a lot of feeling and a good conception of chords in a jazz manner.  He's still trying to do a lot of things, and he's not just standing still with guitar, just settling for one particular level.  He's still going all he can, and that's one thing I appreciate about him.  He's trying to phrase, also.  He's trying to get away from the guitar phrase and get into horn phrasing.

And Tal Farlow.  Tal Farlow strikes me as different altogether.  He doesn't have as much feeling as Barney Kessel to me, but he's got more drive in his playing, and his technique along with that drive is pretty exciting.  He makes it exciting.  I think he's got a better conception of modern chords than the average guitar player.

A lot of guitar players can play modern chords, they can take a solo of modern chords, but they're liable to leave it within the solo range they're in.  They're liable to get away from it and then come back to it, get away from it and come back to it.  Tal Farlow usually stays right on it.

Jimmy Raney is just the opposite from Tal Farlow.  They seem like they have the same ideas in mind, the same changes, the same runs, the same kind of feeling.  But Jimmy Raney is so smooth.  He does it without a mistake, like some cats play piano they couldn't make a mistake if they wanted to.  That's the way Jimmy Raney is.  He gives it a real soft touch, but the ideas are just like Tal Farlow's to me.

And then George Henry, a cat I heard in Chicago.  He's a playing cat.  He asked could he play a tune, and so he gets up there, and that's the first time I ever heard a guitar phrase like Charlie Parker.  It was just the solos, the chords and the things he used were just like any other cat, you know.  And there's another guy from Houston who plays with his thumb.

And naturally, Reinhardt, he's in a different thing altogether.  And Charlie Byrd.  You know, I like all guitar players.  I like what they play.  But to stand out like Charlie Christian.  Well, I guess it's just one of those things.