Jazz Articles about Grant Green

Grant Green: Street Of Dreams

by Chris May
April 18, 2009

Grant Green (1931-79) is probably the most sampled guitarist of his generation, and is rightly regarded as a godfather of acid jazz. His debut, Grant's First Stand (Blue Note, 1961)--heavy on the good foot groove--was made with soul jazz organist Baby Face Willette, and by 1965, when Green recorded an album for Verve, the label was able to title it, accurately enough, His Majesty King Funk. Many of Green's post-1970 recordings were built around extended, vamp or ostinato driven jams. ...

Grant Green: Idle Moments

by Chris May
July 4, 2008

> Grant Green Idle MomentsBlue Note1964 Guitarist Grant Green is most widely remembered today as a godfather of acid jazz, a consequence of the many groove-centric albums he recorded during his career. His debut, Grant's First Stand (Blue Note, 1961), was made with soul jazz organist Baby Face Willette and in 1965, when Green recorded an album for Verve, the label was able to title it His Majesty King Funk and ...

Grant Green: Live at Club Mozambique

by Norman Weinstein
August 9, 2006

This is some apotheosis of both jazz-funk and Grant Green, just when you thought Blue Note was practicing overexposure by adding yet another Green disk to last year's three discs worth of funky compilations. But this live session, which spent 35 years in the vault, transcends all previous Grant Green funk sessions by a mile. A lot of the credit has to go to the pluperfect chemistry of the band. Green may have been Blue Note's most ...

Grant Green: Live At Club Mozambique

by Chris May
August 3, 2006

A previously unreleased live session, Live At Club Mozambique captures Grant Green at the start of his final, groove-driven decade.

By this time, fame and dope had taken a heavy toll on the guitarist, who'd downsized to Detroit, where Club Mozambique hosted one of his regular gigs. Blue Note, now without Alfred Lion, pulled out several stops for this recording. Producer Francis Wolff flew in from New York, as did tenor saxophone soul star Houston Person and groove-centric drummer Idris ...

Hank Mobley: Workout

by Chris May
February 15, 2006

Miles Davis dissed him, Leonard Feather called him the middleweight champion, and most people thought that John Coltrane outshone him. Because of these and a few other real or imagined slings and arrows, a kind of victim support group vibe has gathered around Hank Mobley in recent years. He's in danger of going down in history as a tragic figure.

But hey! Here's another perspective to consider. Mobley recorded an astonishing 25 albums as a leader or co-leader for Blue ...

Grant Green: Sunday Mornin'

by Norman Weinstein
August 5, 2005

There are a lot of Grant Green records on the market these days, entirely too much for those of us who think of him as one of the more erratic talents in the distinguished Blue Note catalog. But Sunday Mornin', coming immediately after the recent release of three funk-themed Green compilations of questionable value, is a gem, arguably the finest album of his career. Green had the misfortune of being saddled by his record company with painfully stupid ...

Grant Green: Goin' West

by Colin Fleming
July 12, 2004

Tempting as it is to dismiss this Grant Green album as the sixties' slant on lite jazz, overriding talent, as one would expect, has a tendency to compensate for a decided lack of risk taking, the very virtue, considering the quality of these players, that could have elevated Goin' West to a minor classic. Recorded in November of 1962 and shelved until 1969, possibly because of its brevity or the glut of Green releases on the market, Goin' West , ...