Rick Clark's Music I Love Blog - Artist: Grant Green / Music: A sampling of Grant Green’s '60s jazz classics
I discovered Grant Green in 1971 with the release of his album Visions. It was an engaging enough album, but what I heard made me want to dig into his previous releases. What I discovered was an amazing body of work by one of jazz’s greatest electric guitarists. His fluidly expressive playing could be jaw dropping, but it never felt like he was showboating. In fact, one of the things I love about his best albums is how much he is all about the ensemble and letting everyone’s strengths shine. If I was to direct you to some of his greatest peak albums during the 60’s, I’d point you to Gooden’s Corner (1961), Oleo (1962), Born To Be Blue (1962), Talkin’ About (1964), Solid (1964), Matador (1964), and my personal favorite, Idle Moments, which came out in 1965.
Each of these albums showcase some of jazz’s greatest players, but any with the line-up Sonny Clark (piano), Sam Jones (bass) and Louis Hayes (drums) is especially good. You can hear them on Gooden’s Corner, Oleo, and Born To Be Blue. If you can find the collection titled The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark, you will be able to find all the good stuff by that line-up in one place.
One of Green’s more adventurous albums is Solid, which features another fantastic line-up, this time with McCoy Tyner (piano), Elvin Jones (drums), Bob Granshaw (bass), Joe Henderson (sax) and James Spaulding on sax. Solid explores more high energy modal jazz. It’s a great ride with highlights being the hard-bopping opener “Minor League,” which was written by Duke Pearson and several Green originals, “The Kicker,” “Grant’s Tune” and an almost 11-minute long blow-out “Ezz-Thetic.”
If you just want to try one Grant Green album as an introduction, I would recommend Idle Moments. Idle Moments is a total Grant Green stand-out with Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Joe Henderson (sax), Duke Pearson (piano), Bob Granshaw (bass) and Al Harewood on drums. Michael Cuscuna’s production and Rudy Van Gelder’s engineering is impeccable. There is so much space sonically. It might be one of the reasons I feel there is room for me to get inside the music and get lost. There isn’t a weak moment on this album.
The seductive title track, which leads off Idle Moments, features Green weaving hypnotic motifs before Duke Pearson lays out one gorgeous piano line after another. Pearson is one of those guys who deserves a lot more love for his compositional, arranging, producing and playing chops. The whole track is so perfect lights-down-low unhurried. “Jean de Fleur,” a Green original, is a total hard-bop rave-up. “Django,” with its meditative opening melodic set-up opens up into an effortlessly swinging series of stand-out rides with Green, Hutcherson, Duke Pearson and Henderson. “Nomad” (another Duke Pearson composition) shines with beautifully intricate melodic lines and ends the album on an energetic high note. This is one of those albums that is musically paced so well that I can personally say it holds up under many many repeated playings.
Hope you like what you hear. It is a pleasure to share this music I love. Below is the full Idle Moments album.