BST 84327

Grant Green - Carryin' On

Released - March 1970

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 3, 1969
Claude Bartee, tenor sax; Willie Bivens, vibes; Clarence Palmer, electric piano #1-4; Earl Neal Creque, electric piano #5; Grant Green, guitar; Jimmy Lewis, electric bass; Leo Morris, drums.

5251 tk.5 Hurt So Bad
5246 tk.12 I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing
5247 tk.19 Ease Back
5248 tk.20 Upshot
5249 tk.24 Cease The Bombing

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Ease Back	Ziggy Modeliste, Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli, George Porter, Jr.	October 3 1969
Hurt So Bad	Bobby Hart, Teddy Randazzo, Bobby Wilding	October 3 1969
I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door I'll Get It Myself	James Brown	October 3 1969
Side Two
Upshot	Grant Green	October 3 1969
Cease the Bombing	Neal Creque	October 3 1969

Liner Notes

It is ten years since Grant Green departed his native St. Louis for New York, and it is good to have this evidence under the hand that he is still Carryin' On. Of course, his horizons have broadened considerably in the meantime. Thanks to his Blue Note records, he is internationally known and admired. As this is written, in fact, he is just back from Carryin' On at the 1969 London Jazz Expo, probably the biggest event of its kind in the world. There he played in a guitar workshop with two other masters, Kenny Burrell and Barney Kessell, his performances inspiring, by an odd coincidence, the use of the same adjective, "superb", in both the London Sunday Times and Melody Maker. The latter's reviewer further approved of his "decisive" style and "strong" sound, while Jazz Journal's man found him "warm and inventive."

Grant played guitar in grade school after receiving some instruction from his guitar-playing father. Influenced primarily by Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker, he was a professional at 13. As a guitarist, he could not therefore have been born at a better time, although nobody could then have foreseen the Guitar Era that was to coincide with his mature years. Perhaps "era" is the wrong word, but it seems as though each instrument enjoys a phase of special public esteem. When the history of this century's popular music is examined, there appears to have been a succession of waves crested in turn by piano, trumpet, clarinet, tenor saxophone, flute, organ, and now guitar. None of the other instruments is ever entirely submerged — trombone and alto saxophone, for example, have had supreme, popular and highly influential performers too — but at different times the public's predilection or partiality for a particular instrument assumes a compulsive unanimity that cannot be gainsaid.

In the case of the guitar, many roles are commingled today. Its use in blues, jazz and country music is familiar enough, and basic to American music. Via bossa nova, its delicacy has been applied freshly to the harmonic language of cool jazz. From the solid beat of rhythm-and-blues and the melting-pot extravaganzas of rock, it has emerged with electronic strength as the instrument that best typifies the times.

"The first thing I learned to play," Grant told Dan Morgenstern in Down Beat, "was boogie woogie. Then I had to do a lot of rock and roll. It's all the blues, anyhow. Everything comes in handy in music."

That was in 1962, and since then rock has absorbed many diverse idioms, but as Grant's remarks indicate, and as he has demonstrated in album after album, he is equipped to ride anything that shows up in the contemporary musical rodeo, no matter how wild, ornery or high-spirited. His assurance and unerring feeling for the appropriate have made him a favorite with musicians of widely different backgrounds. Johnny Hodges, for example, Duke Ellington's veteran star, is one of those who have expressed their approval forcibly. "Grant Green always plays his ass off," he said on one occasion. Then it is only necessary to consider the calibre of the musicians with whom he has recorded in the past: pianists Duke Pearson, Herbie Hancock, Johnny Acea and Kenny Drew; organists Jack McDuff, Larry Young and John Patton; drummers Elvin Jones, Ben Dixon and Dave Bailey; saxophonists Yusef Lateef, Hank Mobley, Joe Henderson, Lou Donaldson, Stanley Turrentine and of course, Johnny Hodges; bassists Wendell Marshall, Ben Tucker and Bob Crenshaw; and so on.

In the present case, however, Grant's flexibility is evidenced in an entirely new context of unusual instrumentation, one in which he is surrounded by musicians whose names for the most part are not well known yet to the jazz audience. That they deserve to be, and soon will be, are reasons for listening carefully to this album. Their presentation is in keeping with the Blue Note policy which, for thirty years, has resulted in the discovery and introduction of new talent.

The first side of the album contains Grant's individual interpretations of three rhythm-and-blues hits, Ease Back, made famous by The Meters, has an infectious medium tempo and excellent solos by Grant and Claude Bartee. Hurt So Bad, a pop sequence of eight-bar phrases popularized by Little Anthony And The Imperials and later by The Lettermen, has the flavor and rhythmic repetition that appeal so strongly to teenagers. James Brown's I Don't Want Nobody To Give Me Nothing is taken at a faster tempo with an assertive beat from Idris Muhammad, an imaginative drummer who makes his presence felt without being obtrusive. Note the skill with which Grant establishes the mood of the piece in the first chorus.

The second side consists of two originals, the first, Upshot, being by Grant himself. The authoritative rimshots and the marching beat give the performance a unique propulsion that inspires the guitarist in three fly-right choruses. Cease The Bombing was written by Earl Neal Creque, a friend of Grant's who takes over on electric piano for this number. The opening statement of the slight but haunting sixteen-bar theme has a tendency to stay in the mind. The message, in short, is explicit.

A glance at the personnel and instrumentation will show you that this music was accomplished with a considerable force of electronic instruments. The effective and consistent good taste with which it was used makes it imperative that Grant Green continue Carryin' On.

-STANLEY DANCE