BST 84360

Grant Green - Alive!

Released - 1970

Recording and Session Information

"Cliche Lounge", Newark, NJ, August 15, 1970
Claude Bartee, tenor sax; Bill Bivens, vibes; Ronnie Foster, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Idris Muhammad, drums; Joseph Armstrong, congas; Bobby Green, announcer.

6759 Let The Music Take Your Mind
6761 Sookie, Sookie

Claude Bartee, tenor sax; Bill Bivens, vibes; Neal Creque, organ; Grant Green, guitar; Idris Muhammad, drums; Joseph Armstrong, congas; Bobby Green, announcer.

6760 Time To Remember
6762 Down Here On The Ground

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Let the Music Take Your Mind	Kool & the Gang, Gene Redd	August 15 1970
Time To Remember	Neal Creque	August 15 1970
Side Two
Band introduction by Buddy Green		August 15 1970
Sookie, Sookie	Don Covay, Steve Cropper	August 15 1970
Down Here on the Ground	Gale Garnett, Lalo Schifrin	August 15 1970

Liner Notes

WINE, women and song, in combination, are an almost infallible guarantee of a good time, but the wine and the women often color the appreciation of the song. Everything can seem happier in congenial company, and everything can get rosier and rosier with appropriate infusions of, say, cold duck, scotch, gin, vodka, rum, bourbon, rye or whatever your fancy is. The whole idea, of course, is to let the world go hang for a time, to leave your worries on the doormat as the song says, and to live it up a bit. In such circumstances, naturally, the song tends to become more beautiful/ more moving and more swinging than it is possible to credit. "Boy! this is great! I wish I had a record of it." How many thousands of times has that been said in nightclubs around the world!

There are a variety of very good reasons for recording any kind of music live, even though they are not always justified by the results. Holding an aching head the next day, last night's wildly enthusiastic listener would often be sadly disappointed by a record of what he had heard. Yet the Stimulus of a receptive, understanding audience can have an extraordinary effect on musicians whose art is primarily improvisatory. The give-and-take of the relationship between patron and band may result, paradoxically, in either increased relaxation or intensity. This is particularly true in the more intimate clubs, where everybody comes together and is lifted up in the music. And the volume and exciting, all-pervasive throb of the electric organ really have to be experienced in rooms of that kind.

Perhaps the greatest advantage of live recordings such as this is that they are made at the time of night when jazz musicians are accustomed to working. Jazz musicians are night people, and when you bring them to a record studio in the bright light of day, something, however little — but something essential — seems to evaporate. Even at night, they are not necessarily going to play their best in the first set. They've got to warm up, and inspiration is as unpredictable as lightening, coming in the second, third or last set — or not at all. The great value of recording machines and their tapes is that they can take everything down, and sort it out the next day.

It was fortunate, indeed, that they were there on the 15th of August, 1970, when Grant Green was playing a return engagement at the Cliché Lounge in Newark, N.J., although most of the preceding observations do not really apply to him at all, because he is a rather extraordinarily consistent musician. The late Johnny Hodges, who he resembles in certain respects, would always insist that Grant was a "bitch," which was about as high in praise as he ever went. And what Johnny liked was his constancy, his flow of ideas, his beat, and his special kind of lyricism that never forgot the good earth.

Given Grant's consistency, it is immediately obvious that his quintet was in good order, too, this particular night. When there are seven individuals and seven temperaments to be considered, it is by no means certain that all will "get in the groove" together, but the four long performances here prove that this was one of those occasions.

Of the opening selection, "Let The Music Take Your Mind," Grant said, "I heard the record by Kool and The Gang, liked it, and decided to come up with my own interpretation. You are making a big mistake today if you don't give the people some of the hit tunes they know, but that doesn't stop you from interpreting them in your own way. It's the same thing with the boogaloo beat. Ifs very popular and it's easy enough to introduce it into the music. After all, that's what they like to dance to."

The rhythmic vitality of this group is very infectious. You may be sure that everything was shaking at the Cliché Lounge in a way that might have made Kool and The Gang a little envious. Added to Grant's own authority, both in solo and agile interplay with the ensemble, is that of Idris Muhammad, whose commanding drums provide an assured, driving foundation throughout, one which spurs on the exciting Claude Bartee.

"Time to Remember" brings a change of pace and mood, with evocative vibes playing by William Bivens. The composer, Neal Creque, takes over at the organ for this. "He's a friend of Claude Bartee's from the islands," Grant explained, "and I became interested in him when I found he wrote such good tunes."

"Sookie, Sookie" is a bow in the direction of James Brown, one of Grant's favorites in that field. Eleven minutes long, this is like a relay race by a well-matched team of runners. Grant is out first to set the pace and gain a lead; Bartee takes over, determined and confident; then here comes Ronnie Foster, whipping up an organ storm, turning on the heat until the home stretch and victory are in sight. Grant, of course, leads the team through the end where they go up and grab the cup. (End of comic symbolism!)

"Down Here On The Ground" brings Neal Creque back on organ for what is a very solid and worthy salute to the late, great Wes Montgomery. Grant is out front all the way on this, deliberately bringing back the memories at the beginning, and then digging deep into his own thing with increasing feeling for nearly seven minutes of significant music. Muhammad and Creque get the message quickly and move in with warm, close support. This is just the kind of emotion-charged performance that is always so hard to capture in the record studio, because it is so very dependent on atmosphere, on a communal feeling of brotherhood and affection between musicians and audience. The studio demands precision, the avoidance of fluffs, and even clockwatching, whereas in a club such inhibiting factors scarcely exist. But when the spirit moves, when everything and everybody feels right, there is something special to be captured — and something that can really only be captured — ALIVE!

—STANLEY DANCE

CD Reissue Liner Notes

THE music contained in this recording was remixed from the original eight-track master tapes. These tapes were then converted into a digital format using a 24-bit converter. As a result, the clarity of the new mixes comes through and the power and funkiness of the grooves are more dynamic. All of these performances end in vamps and were meant to be faded. On the original LP, after the fades, applause from the evening was abruptly spliced in. On this reissue, those distracting and artificially added elements have been abandoned allowing for a more pleasurable listening experience.

Grant was living in Detroit at the time and came to the Cliché Lounge in Newark for the purpose of recording an album for Blue Note. Four sets were taped that night and the results were released in 1971 as Grant Green Alive!

Except for two members this was Grant's working band at the time. Idris Muhammad was employed because he was the house groove drummer for Blue Note at the time and Francis Wolff (the producer) wanted to maintain that "Blue Note groove" for which Idris was famous. Grant had also brought in Neal Creque to perform on his arrangements of "Down Here On The Ground" and "Time To Remember." Included in this reissue were three tracks not included on the original issue. "Hey Western Union Man" and "It's Your Thing" were part of Grant's repertoire at the time and these tracks were eventually released on the compilation The Lost Grooves. "Maiden Voyage" is released here for the first time. This new version of Alive! gives the listener a better idea of the way Grant shaped his band and the arrangements in performance.

An historical footnote: In keeping with the spirit of a live recording at a club, Grant invited Phillip Wilson, a young drummer from his hometown of St. Louis, to sit in with him to play "Sonnymoon For Two," the only straight-ahead jazz performance done that night. That version could not be released because the tape was stopped in the middle of Grant's solo, but its existence shows that Grant was still playing be-bop at gigs.

—BOB BELDEN, 2000