Jazz Articles about Grant Green

Jimmy Forrest: Black Forrest

by Jack Bowers
July 1, 1999

Tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest, best known and perhaps best remembered as composer of the huge R&B smash, “Night Train,” was also an underrated swing–based player out of the Gene Ammons/Lockjaw Davis/Sonny Stitt school whose ample talents are showcased on the quintet date Black Forrest, recorded in 1959 with the same cast (and a couple of the same songs) that appeared on an earlier Delmark release, All the Gin Is Gone (Delmark 404). As it turns out, the tunes that comprise ...

Grant Green: Standards

by C. Michael Bailey
August 1, 1998

The House Band. In the early 1960s, guitarist Grant Green (1931-1979) and pianist Sonny Clark (1931-1963) were the top-drawer house musicians in the Blue Note stables. Grant Green was on hand for some of Blue Note's highest moments (Hank Mobley's Workout, Ike Quebec's Blue and Sentimental, and Lee Morgan's Search for a New Land ). Dexter Gordon considered Sonny Clark his favorite pianist, having him play on the notable Go and A Swinging Affair. Clark also made a series of ...

Grant Green: Live At The Lighthouse

by Douglas Payne
May 1, 1998

This less-than-stellar collection of medium and up-tempo groovers from 1972 was Grant Green's last record for Blue Note after a decade of many often stupendous records. He would record only intermittently hereafter until his death in 1979: live in 1973 with Houston Person, and in disco-oriented studio sessions for Kudu in 1976 and CTI-clone Versatile in 1978. While the guitarist sounds as robust as ever here, the numbingly repetitive vamps are clearly beneath his abilities and hardly inspiring or memorable. ...

Grant Green: Iron City

by Douglas Payne
April 1, 1998

For guitarist Grant Green (1931-79), the years between 1965 and 1969 were lost in a battle with drugs. His graceful, easily identifiable single note phrases had caught many listeners' attention with a wide variety of excellent Blue Note dates between 1960 and 1965. Seemingly able to master any style, he never once diminished the force or appeal of his own personality. Leaving Blue Note, he recorded two albums for Verve in 1965 (one remains unreleased), then wasn't heard from again ...

Grant Green: I Want To Hold Your Hand

by Douglas Payne
November 1, 1997

The title of this March 1965 session doesn't exactly inspire thoughts of collective interplay. And, sure enough, the music within is dreadfully dull. The third of four collaborations between guitarist Grant Green and organist Larry Young, I Want To Hold Your Hand, was also the last Blue Note record the guitarist made until 1969's Carryin' On (which initiated a three-year spate of rather dull pop-funk). The arrangements are bland at best; ignited only by the inventive cues drummer Elvin Jones ...

Grant Green with Sonny Clark: Grant Green: The Complete Quarets with Sonny Clark

by Wayne Zade
September 1, 1997

Blue Note has reissued guitarist Grant Green's recordings with Sonny Clark on piano, made originally for that label in December 1961 and January 1962. These recordings were recently available again on Mosaic in a stylish limited edition that sold out quickly. Many more listeners will have the opportunity now to catch these wonderful sessions, whose history has been a bit obscure.

Although they were recorded in the early '60s, these sides hit paydirt in the U.S. first in 1980 ( ...