“A lot of cats say you don’t have to play fast, but it can cause you to phrase better”: Why bebop master Wes Montgomery never used a guitar pick – and only played using his thumb

Just shy of 60 years after his passing, few guitarists hold as much reverence as Wes Montgomery. The bebop virtuoso helped take jazz guitar to a whole new level across a changemaking career, and he did it all in an unusual way.

At the time, and even still today, most guitarists struck the strings of their big box guitars with a guitar pick. But Montgomery, chasing a sound later described by Guitar Player scribe Ralph Gleason as a “bolt of lightning,” used his thumb instead.

The technique took hours to master but it made him a legend, made even more impressive by the speed and fluidity he generated from playing solely with his thumb.

Yet Montgomery, who died on June 15, 1968, didn’t necessarily see it that way. He was forced to play without a pick out of sheer necessity, softly brushing the strings during his after-hours practise sessions so as to not wake or disturb anyone.

It became his signature style and sound, one that would define his legacy as a player. It was one of his greatest strengths, but the man himself also saw it as his biggest weakness.

“That’s one of my downfalls,” Montgomery once told Guitar Player in a rare interview in 1973. “In order to get a certain amount of speed, you should use a pick, I think. A lot of cats say you don’t have to play fast, but being able to play fast can cause you to phrase better.

“But I just didn’t like the sound,” he explains. “I tried it for about two months. I didn’t use the thumb at all. But after two months, I still couldn’t use the pick, so I said I’d go ahead and use the thumb.

“I liked the tone better with the thumb, but the technique better with the pick; I couldn’t have them both.”

Yet while Montgomery focused on the flaws of his playing, others have seen it differently over the decades. Ultra-melodic guitarist Maya Delilah says she gets “a lot more feeling when I play with my fingers”, citing Montgomery as the player who encouraged her to ditch the pick.

Matteo Mancuso has also called the late legend “one of the best,” and named him as one of the key players who helped shape his sound.

“I love how he found his sound through his limitations, because he was using just his right-hand thumb,” he told Guitar World in 2024. “Most players wouldn’t be able to do much with just that.”

Decades later, other players are finding great success with swapping picks for their thumb, with Tosin Abasi’s thumping technique – also adopted by modern-day stars like Josh de la Victoria and Charlie Robbins – has echoes of Montgomery, even if it isn’t a direct influence.

These are players who prove that there are always different ways to play, and oftentimes, their lineage can be traced back to Montgomery.