Grant Green - Green Street
Released - September 1961
Recording and Session Information
Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, April 1, 1961
Grant Green, guitar; Ben Tucker, bass; Dave Bailey, drums.
tk.2 Green With Envy
tk.7 Grant's Dimensions
tk.10 Alone Together
tk.16 'Round Midnight
tk.24 Number One Green Street
Session Photos
Photos: © Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images
https://www.mosaicrecordsimages.com/
Track Listing
| Side One | ||
| Title | Author | Recording Date |
| No. 1 Green Street | Grant Green | 01 April 1961 |
| Round About Midnight | Thelonious Monk | 01 April 1961 |
| Grant's Dimensions | Grant Green | 01 April 1961 |
| Side Two | ||
| Green with Envy | Grant Green | 01 April 1961 |
| Alone Together | Howard Dietz, Arthur Schwartz | 01 April 1961 |
Liner Notes
THE quality and quantity of new talent that has emerged in modern jazz during the past few years has placed many of the critics in a curious predicament. Superlative piled on superlative can build a dangerously precipitous mountain. After you have hailed the most brilliant new this and the most remarkable new that, what words do you have left when a Grant Green comes along?
Certainly it is accurate, though somehow not adequate, to hail this newcomer as a vital new link in the six-stringed lifeline from Charlie Christian through Barney Kessel to Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery. But the degree of maturity already discernible in Grant Green indicates that it would be an injustice to him merely to make the usual comparisons with his predecessors or toss some of the conventional and overworked adjectives his way.
There is, of course, a clear reason for this maturity. Green was playing With local groups in and around his native St. Louis as far back as 1944, when he was 13 years old. He has been paying his dues long enough to have acquired not only an extraordinary skill in execution but also a beat and vitality, a rhythmic sensitivity and melodic creativity that could only be the product of years of experience and experiment. Christian, let us not forget, was barely out of his teens when he joined Benny Goodman; Kessel was 20 when he made the Norman Granz film Jammin' the Blues. Bearing this in mind, one should not find it totally unbelievable that in his 30th year Grant Green has accomplished at least as much as his important precursors when they first came to prominence.
Though it may seem heretical, I would venture the opinion that Green has extended jazz guitar playing far beyond the beyond to which, when he died almost 20 years ago, Christian had taken it. Christian, though he once said that he used to listen to Diango Reinhardt and copy his solos note for note, certainly did not derive his style from Diango's, or at least not its rhythmic aspect. From that standpoint, Christian had virtually no direct source, but of course he himself was the undisputed fountainhead for almost everything that followed. Green, on the Other hand, began to build the elements of his musical personality a couple of years after Christian's death and, as Robert Levin pointed out in the notes for Grant's first Stand (Blue Note 4064), has been influenced as much by horn players, notably Charlie Parker and Miles Davis, as by guitarists.
If a Grant Green had come along in 1938, playing exactly as he plays on this LP, the arrival of Charlie Christian the following year would have seemed anti-climactic. But this is hardly a valid hypothetical case, since there could have been no Green without a Christian, a Bird and a Miles. But let's turn from hypotheses to the realities of the record at hand, and very remarkable realities they are.
Green is heard here in a trio context, as he was on his debut album, but this is a vastly different kind of trio. The organ has given way to a bass. Though in the earlier album the harmonic discipline and exciting rhythmic background supplied by Baby Face Willette were valuable factors, the full Freedom of movement given him by the present setting seems to bring his qualities into even sharper relief.
Ben Tucker, the bassist whose contribution to these sides is as conspicuous as it is consistent, was born in December 1930 (just six months before Green) in Nashville. After studying tuba in high school he majored in music at Tennessee State U, , then worked in Nashville clubs for a couple of years and spent four years in the service. Later, he spent some time around Los Angeles, playing jobs with Warne Marsh, Art Pepper and the late Carl Perkins. He came to New York in 1959, toured for several months as part of Chris Connor's rhythm section, and has since built a reputation in a series of combo gigs and recordings in the East. He is not related to George Tucker, the bassist heard on some recent Blue Note LPs.
Dave Bailey is perhaps the ideal drummer for this instrumentation, in view of his frequent association since 1955 with Gerry Mulligan in a variety of pianoless rhythm sections. Born in 1926 in Portsmouth, Virginia, Dave was raised in Philadelphia where he received his first training at home as a member of a musical family. Moving to New York in 1947, he studied at Music Center Conservatory, and later worked with Al Sears, Johnny Hodges, Charlie Mingus and Lou Donaldson, playing his first Blue Note date with Lou's combo.
"No. 1 Green Street" is an appropriate opening track, displaying Green in the traditional 12-bar blues groove that is the perfect common denominator of jazz. In this instance, it's a-flat blues with the Royal Garden-style G seventh at the eighth bar. The theme is based on What is virtually the blues scale—Flat seventh, fifth, fourth, flat third and tonic; the first couple of choruses of Green's improvisation are similarly oriented. Notice how, about three and a half minutes along, he eases into a funky use of thirds, one of his comparatively rare departures From the single-note line. (After all, he might argue, did Bird play chords?) Coming out of the bass solo there's a similar departure using fourths. But technicalities aside, it's the overall mood, the complete facility and fluency that will convince you, right from this initial item, of the virtues of this trio in general and its leader in particular.
"'Round About Midnight" is a substantial illustration of Grant's way with a melody. The Thelonious Monk standard, of which the version generally considered definitive was recorded by the composer on Blue Note 1510, is played without fuss or preamble, plunging straight into the melody with variations in rhythm and phrasing but few defections from the melody in the opening chorus. Note the sensitive appogiatura effects, especially during the release. Green's excellent sound is particularly conspicuous on this track, live and vibrant, yet without too many highs, avoiding both the dampness of the "cool" guitarists and the stridency of some of Christian's followers.
"Grant's Dimensions" is an interestingly constructed original melody based on pairs of thirteenth chords, the second pair a fourth higher than the first. The harmonic pattern is such that it tends to lend a feeling of symmetry to the improvisation; Often during his ad lib passages. Green will play a certain phrase and then repeat or vary it to conform with the structure of the tune. Ben Tucker's solo here is his most interesting contribution to the album, showing his strength both improvising melodically and walking steadily. The interchange of fours between Green and Bailey is another highlight.
"Green With Envy" might well have been titled for the reaction it will inspire among guitarists who listen to this LP. Like "Grant's Dimensions," it's based on a series of repeated phrases against rhythmic suspensions. Although this is the longest track (ten minutes) it derives so much variety both from Grant's work and from Dave Bailey's supple support that its duration is never important, except to the extent that it enables everyone to stretch out comfortably. Grant's chord comping during the bass chorus is as intriguing as the solo itself. Bailey and Green trade eighths before the return to the theme.
"Alone Together," the memorable Arthur Schwartz melody of 1932, shows Grant in a generally more subdued mood than on the originals, using fewer notes but still maintaining the magnificent continuity that is a prime virtue of his improvisations. The repetition of an emphatic series of triplets, shortly before the bass solo, constitutes an especially impressive passage. Tucker's solo again shows his complete mastery of time.
After you have listened to this LP in its entirety, you may look back in surprise, as I did, at the variety of moods and dynamic shadings achieved over such a long course by a group consisting simply of guitar, bass and drums. Charlie Christian was never confronted With this challenge; Barney Kessel is among the few ever to have achieved comparable results with this instrumentation. But the concentration of the spotlight on Grant Green for long stretches, with a background that never interrupts the amazing flow of his ideas, was a concept suited to a major artist, and I don't expect anyone to contest his right to be considered just that. Though there are many paths for the pursuer of new jazz talent to follow nowadays, it is unlikely that he will find a better-paved or more eventful road to travel than Green Street.
— LEONARD FEATHER
(Author of The New Encyclopedia of Jazz)
Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER
RVG CD Reissue Liner Notes
A NEW LOOK AT GREEN STREET
As Leonard Feather points out, all trios are not the same. When we think of Grant Green operating in such a relatively modest format, we are likely to imagine the other slots filled by Hammond B-3 organ and drums. This is the unit Green featured on his debut disc, Grant's First Stand, as well as on his classic Talkin' About encounter with Larry Young and Elvin Jones. When Green dispensed with organ on his albums, he was likely to replace it with a piano, as he did to great effect on sessions with Kenny Drew, McCoy Tyner, Sonny Clark and Herbie Hancock.
The more intimate environment created with and drums in support that is heard on Green Street seems relatively out of character for the guitarist. This particular configuration conjures images of midtown New York guitar rooms like The Composer, where Tal Farlow used to hold forth, rather than of Count Basie's and the other Harlem clubs that were Green's typical haunts. It also cries out for a fuller, more active approach than Green's reputation for lean, bluesy insistence has led us to expect. Yet there is not the slightest indication that working without the support of a chording instrument posed a problem in any way. On the contrary, the bare-bones setting provided more room for Green to display his musicianship, and to reinforce the sense of flowing melodic invention and unshakable swing that had already led to comparisons with Charlie Christian.
Bassist Ben Tucker and drummer Dave Bailey were ideal rhythm partners, as they would demonstrate again three weeks after this session on Lou Donaldson's Gravy Train. The pair had already recorded with Green in March, on a Bailey quintet session for the short-lived Jazztime label, and clearly had reached a rare comfort level. Each is the kind of player who does his job without calling undue attention to himself, which in this instance left space for Green to display his ability to adjust the weight of his lines on the fly through subtle adjustments of attack. Tucker's solo stretches also call forth some sympathetic chording from a guitarist known primarily as a king of the single line.
Green did an excellent job in selecting both material that would sustain extended exploration and tempos that add variety without breaking the overall mood. He had more than enough ideas of his own, a notion reinforced by the two alternate takes. (It is Bailey who drops out and creates the breakdown on the alternate "Green With Envy.") "'Round About Midnight" and "Alone Together" make it particularly clear that Green was not limited to blues and other basic harmonic terrains, as does "Green With Envy, " which is based on the chord changes of Horace Silver's "Nica's Dream." "Grant's Dimension" creates a different kind of challenge by adjusting the typical blues proportions — in effect it's a 20-bar AAB tune where the main section is eight bars long but the release only four. The more-familiar contours of "No. 1 Green Street" allow for a blues manifesto that is a counterpart to the astonishing "Miss Ann's Tempo" from Green's previous album.
The excellent results Green obtained here with just bass and drums might have led him into a slew of similar projects, especially since he once identified this setting in an interview as his favorite. Given his versatility, however, and the great popularity of organ groups, a substantial body of such trio music was not to be. Green did return to the format at Rudy Van Gelder's on one other occasion, when Wilbur Ware and Al Harewood joined him for an August 1961 session that was titled Standards when it first appeared in the U.S. in 1998. While Standards is a fine album, Green Street remains the definitive trio Grant Green, and a cornerstone of his varied and always satisfying discography.
— Bob Blumenthal, 2002
