Grant Green - Grant's First Stand
Released - May 1961
Recording and Session Information
Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, January 28, 1961
'Baby Face' Willette, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Ben Dixon, drums.
tk.8 A Wee Bit O' Green
tk.9 Miss Ann's Tempo
tk.12 Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do
tk.14 Baby's Minor Lope
tk.18 Lullaby Of The Leaves
tk.21 Blues For Willarene
Session Photos
Photos: Francis Wolff
Track Listing
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Liner Notes
THE evolution of the jazz guitar as a horn-styled solo vehicle has been significantly effected by a handful of players. Prior to the middle twenties, Lonnie Johnson and Eddie Lang, the function of the guitar (or its, at that time, prevailing predecessor, the banjo) was, apart from its use in the hands of blues singers, primarily rhythmic. Lang, particularly, was the first to successfully demonstrate both the guitar's hardly realized harmonic possibilities and its capacities as a solo voice. He developed a single-string style that was later to be most fruitfully explored and extended in the work of Charlie Christian.
Of course, not all pre-Christian guitarists remained ignorant of the guitar's solo potentials. George Van Eps, Dick McDonough, and Carl Kress were prominent early disciples and popularizers of Lang's approach. Diango Reinhardt brought his own indigenous folk tradition, that of the gypsy, and a virtuoso technique to the jazz guitar, but it remained for Christian, one of the first to make use of the electrically-amplified guitar and the precursor of all modern jazz guitar, to define and carry the development further, and one can hear echoes of his profound impression in the work of Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell, Jimmy Raney, Tal Farlow, Wes Montgomery, et al.
Grant Green, who makes his first recorded appearance with this album, is particularly concerned with the guitar's horn-like possibilities and if an impression is to be given, one might say that he has reduced certain elements of Christian's approach to their basics. Green relies almost exclusively on a single-note method — more so than do his contemporaries — and it is this limitation which he imposes on technique and the capabilities of the guitar that emerges less as a Facet of a style than as a style in itself.
"I don't like to get hung up with the piano or organ player with a lot of chord clusters — it gets cluttered," he says. And it should come as no surprise upon listening to Green that while he counts Christian and Jimmy Raney as important influences, he acknowledges horn players, particularly Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, as having most effected the shaping and direction of his style.
"I don't listen to guitar players much — just horn players. I think horn players have had a bigger influence on me than guitar players. I used to sit up all night copying Charlie Parker solos note by note."
Green's lines are uncluttered, direct, remarkably free of technical excesses, and seem always to have been informed by the blues, as witness his work on "Ain't Nobody's Business" and "Lullaby of the Leaves," as well as the four originals. He is also gifted with a propulsive, vital rhythmic imagination and energy which has prompted one musician to remark that if Horace Silver were to play the guitar he might sound much like Green. Probably the opening tune, "Miss Ann's Tempo" (for his wife), best exhibits this quality, though it is amply demonstrated throughout the set.
Grant was born in St. Louis, June 6, 1931, began his study of the guitar while still in grade school, and by the time he had turned thirteen, was playing with various local groups in the St. Louis and East St. Louis areas. His professional experience has been divided among jazz and rhythm & blues groups, and until 1960 when he journeyed to New York for the First time, was centered in his home locale. Groups led by Jack Murphy, Jimmy Forrest (who functioned as Green's mentor), and Sam Lazar were several with whom he worked, and For a time he fronted his own trio. Lou Donaldson, impressed by Green during a tour through the middle west, brought him to the attention of Alfred Lion. Since his arrival in New York, Grant has expressed particular admiration for guitarists Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery, and has, in turn, prompted the respect of other musicians, most notably Miles Davis.
Dixon, who worked and recorded with Lloyd Price for three years, is from Gaffney, South Carolina, where he was born on December 25, 1934. He moved to Washington, D. C. when he was four and took up the drums when he was fifteen. In 1956 he came to New York and, in addition to Price and various other rhythm & blues units, played with Wilbur Ware, Leo Parker, Mal Waldron, and Ray Draper. He names Art Blakey ("He made me take a complete interest in the drums."), Max Roach, and Philly Joe Jones as the drummers he most admires and who he feels have exercised the strongest influences on the way he plays.
Organist "Baby Face" Willette was born in New Orleans, September 11, 1933, began taking piano lessons when he was four; and though he was not to play it professionally until years ago, was first introduced to the organ when he was ten in Little Rock, Arkansas, where his father was the minister of a church. His career as a piano player carried him across the entire United States, Cuba, and much of Canada, most often in the company of groups among whose leaders were King Kolax, Jump Jackson, Joe Houston, Jimmy Griffin, Guitar Slim, Johnny Otis, and Big Jay McNeely. For a while, in Chicago and Milwaukee, he his own trio. Mayfield Woods (a church organist from Chicago) and Herman Stevens were responsible for opening his ear to what he termed the "greater sensational" qualities of the organ and he abandoned the piano in favor of the organ as his primary means of expression. Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Bud Powell, and Thelonious Monk are among his favorite pianists. Jimmy Smith and Shirley Scott his favorite organists. "Charlie Parker, though, has been my greatest inspiration."
The common experience which Green, Willette, and Dixon have each shared, and which is revealed throughout the recording, is an extensive apprenticeship in rhythm & blues. Certainly this background has been central to the development of Green's manner of playing. Dixon feels that this experience has been invaluable to them.
"You get a solid, basic foundation," he says. playing for dancers in clubs, you learn how to play with a beat. You learn all the elementary things. It gives you experience in everything except straight-out blowing - the experience needed to go behind it."
If, for these musicians, "straight-out blowing" has been denied in such contexts previously, they take advantage of the opportunity here with effective results.
"Miss Ann's Tempo," "Blues for Willarene," "A Wee Bit o' Green," all lines by Green, and "Baby's Minor Lope" (by Willette) are blues of varying shades and tempos with an earthy, deep-rooted swing characteristic of each. Willette, who will be compared with Jimmy Smith, is, as both a soloist and accompanist, a propulsive force throughout, making great use of the organ's intrinsic power and demonstrating, along with Green, that "funk" has not yet been depleted of its resources. "Lullaby of the Leaves" and the intriguing "Ain't Nobody's Business," a song associated with the late Billie Holiday in particular, but rarely explored by modern jazz musicians, sustain the mood of the album and the latter offers a view of the more lyrical facets of Green's talent.
It is Blue Note's pride that new and relatively unknown musicians may find, if they warrant it, a place in its catalog. Grant Green follows a long line of important musicians who received their first hearing on the Blue Note label. In time it is entirely conceivable that he will take his place among them in terms of stature as well.
— ROBERT LEVIN
Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by RIED MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes
A NEW LOOK AT GRANT'S FIRST STAND
The accuracy of Robert Levin's prediction regarding Grant Green's subsequent success allows us to fill in details of his early career and correct two errors. While Levin gets the day and month right, Green was born in 1935, not 1931. Among the many great musicians who met and jammed with the guitarist in his St. Louis days were drummer Elvin Jones, who was playing with J. J. Johnson at the time, and John Coltrane, during his Miles Davis period. Jones was the drummer on Green's first jazz session (a Jimmy Forrest date taped in Chicago for Delmark in late-1959) and would support the guitarist on several later Blue Note sessions, while Green's fondness for Coltrane is documented in such later performances as "Talkin' about J. C." and two versions of "My Favorite Things."
While this may have been Green's first appearance "on record" in terms of album release dates, it was not his first visit to a recording studio. In addition to his encounter with Forrest, he also visited Chicago in 1960 to record with organist Sam Lazar for Argo. Then, after Lou Donaldson heard him at an East St. Louis club prophetically named the Blue Note and owned by Leo Gooden (both owner and venue would soon be celebrated in "Gooden's Corner"), Green cut his first East Coast tracks with Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones (the long-unissued results now appear on the Green CD First Session). Then came the Lou Donaldson date on January 23, 1961 that produced Here 'Tis and inspired both the present album and Baby Face Willette's Face to Face with Green, Ben Dixon, and tenor saxophonist Fred Jackson two days later.
Alfred Lion's enthusiasm is not hard to understand. From the opening chorus of "Miss Ann's Tempo," Green announces that he possesses a sound and concept of his own, melodically concise, fluid, and charged with an impeccable rhythmic drive. While his solos can sound deceptively simple, they contain enough nuance and variety to avoid monotony in an album built around four blues originals, a blues classic (albeit in eight-bar rather than twelve-bar format), and a pop standard with a perceptively blue aura. The gritty yet tasteful empathy of Willette and Dixon are in total agreement, revealing that in addition to his strengths as a soloist, Green had what was required to carry a band and/or album as a leader.
The meat of Green's subsequent career is well documented on the Blue Note albums he recorded during two stints with the label (1960—66, 1969—72), and the success of Grant's First Stand begs two questions regarding why that extensive discography does not look different. Why, for one, did the Green,'Willette/Dixon unit fail to become one of the label's house rhythm sections? The trio's return to Rudy Van Gelder's for Face to Face and Willette's subsequent Stop and Listen in May 1961 display no drop in empathy, yet those sessions are all that remain on tape of their collective encounters. Willette, whose wanderlust had been noted on Face, left the New York area after his second session, surfacing in 1964 with two Argo albums that feature less inspired music and supporting players. Dixon and Green, in contrast, would eventually collaborate on two dozen sessions, primarily as sidemen with a range of leaders including Donaldson, Jack McDuff, and Johnny Hodges.
Only two future Green/Dixon encounters took place on the guitarist's own Blue Note albums, and one of those (Sunday Mornin sports a rhythm section with piano. This underscores another curiosity — the relative scarcity of Grant Green albums on Blue Note with organ accompaniment. As soulful as the present music may be, Lion saw that Green had the potential to work similar magic in acoustic settings and wasted no time in proving the point. Sessions with Stanley Turrentine, Hank Mobley, and Kenny Dorham (the last unissued) preceded the guitar/bass/drums classic Green Street in April '61 ; and over time, the likes of Horace Parlan, Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, and Lee Morgan would also receive the benefits of Green's support sans Hammond B-3. Green quickly became the guitarist of choice for many Blue Note organists, often with Dixon alongside; but his own subsequent projects in this period. with organ were limited to Grantstand from August '61 with McDuff (reciprocity, perhaps, for Green's appearance on two McDuff albums for Prestige) and the 1963 Am I Blue? with John Patton (and Dixon). Things would change once Green connected with Larry Young and Elvin Jones for Talkin' About in 1964; but until then, Green remained Blue Note's guitarist for all instrumental occasions.
— Bob Blumenthal, 2008
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