GXF-3053

Grant Green - Matador

Released - 1979

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, May 20, 1964
McCoy Tyner, piano; Grant Green, guitar; Bob Cranshaw, bass; Elvin Jones, drums.

1355 tk.2 Matador
1356 tk.4 Green Jeans
1357 tk.17 My Favorite Things
1358 tk.29 Bedouin

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Matador	Grant Green	May 20 1964
My Favorite Things	R. Rodgers-O. Hammerstein II	May 20 1964
Side Two
Green Jeans	Grant Green	May 20 1964
Bedouin	Duke Pearson	May 20 1964

Liner Notes

In February, 1979, guitarist Grant Green joined the ranks of great jazz players whom we have lost to early deaths. Born in St. Louis in 1931, Grant started playing the guitar, his father's instrument, at the age of 13 and learned his craft on a variety of local gigs calling for jazz, boogie woogie, R & B, rock and roll etc. His first professional recording session was a Jimmy Forrest date for Delmark records, a date that also included Elvin Jones.

Grant came to New York in 1959 and was brought to the attention of Blue Note Records shortly thereafter by Lou Donaldson. By 1960, he was recording for the label as a leader and as a sideman on various organ-saxophone dates. He also appeared on first rate Blue Note albums by Stanley Turrentine, Horace Parlan, Hank Mobley, Herbie Hancock and Lee Morgan among others. Morgan's Search For The New Land and Green's own Idle Moments document some of the best jazz guitar playing of the early sixties.

From his earliest gigs with Jack McDuff, Harry Edison, Forrest and Donaldson, it was evident that Grant was a unique stylist who was not under the spell of the contemporary guitar heroes of the day. His roots were in Charlie Christian, Charlie parker and the blues, and he developed a strong, lyrical yet rhythmic approach to the guitar that suited Blue Note's hard bop sound perfectly.

1964 was the least prolific year of recording for John Coltrane, recording Crescent in two sessions in April and June and A Love Supreme in one session in December. He was near the height of his popularity, and the sound of his quartet was unmistakable. Yet Alfred Lion of Blue Note rather daringly used Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner together on a number of sessions. I say daring because the identity and empathy shared by these two giants could swallow the spotlight from any but the most secure leaders.

In April, McCoy and Elvin were on quintet dates by Joe Henderson and Wayne Shorter (In N Out and Night Dreamer respectively). Later that year, Henderson and Shorter invited even closer comparisons with Inner Urge and Ju Ju respectively, using the pianist and drummer in a quartet context. Needless to say, the results were successful and unique unto themselves. Grant Green found himself in the same situation with this quartet album recorded in May and an as yet unissued sextet album (with Joe Henderson and James Spaulding added) recorded in June.

In all cases, Tyner and Jones remained themselves, but lent their extraordinary talents to the music at hand. The result was never the Coltrane quartet with someone substituting for Trane. It should also be noted that over the next year Grant, Elvin and Larry Young would form a very special rhythm section that would be responsible for Young's first album and three more by Grant.

If Shorter and Henderson seemed brave playing a tenor saxophone in front of a rhythm section with Elvin and McCoy, Grant Green deserves a medal for doing Trane's hit "My Favorite Things" in the same setting. Although the group approaches the song with the same style and 6/8 feel as Trane, they do not reduce it to its barest chordal essentials. McCoy is especially responsive to Green' s unique sense of rhythm and phrasing. The guitarist tosses off brittle, bright, staccato-like lines with clarity and momentum. The pianist kicks off his solo with the same introductory phrase that he always used with Trane, but his solo is very melodic with an almost Monkish sense of harmony at times. Elvin and Cranshaw are there all the way.

The Bedouins are nomadic desert Arabs of North Africa and Southwest Asia. Duke Pearson's composition "Bedouin" projects a feeling that is more musically Asiatic than African. It is a tune that Pearson recorded on his own album. Green had played it in 1963 on a somewhat disappointing Bobby Hutcherson session that was never issued. This version was the final take of the session. By this point, the empathy and interaction between the guitarist and Tyner is highly developed. In his solo, Green responds beautifully to Tyner's insistent and varying support. McCoy' s own solo is a lovely, seamless tapestry. Elvin takes a thoughtful drum solo that does not break the mood of the piece. In that respect, it is reminiscent of his solo work on "The Drum Thing" from Coltrane's Crescent recorded just one month earlier.

Grant's "Green Jeans" is an AABA tune with a rhythm section arrangement that is flavored by Miles Davis' work of the Kind Of Blue period. Both Green and Tyner turn in flowing, cascading solos. Thankfully, they are not cascading at the expense of clarity.

The guitarist's other original "Matador" is a repeated AAB type structure that is maintained throughout the solos. Grant's solo typifies his ability to be completely rhythmic and lyrical simultaneously. McCoy's work is the most closely related to his playing with Trane.

Grant Green left a wealth of music in the Blue Note vaults, some of which will hopefully be issued. He was a guitarist of high intelligence with powerful drive. During the 1970's he made some pretty lame records in an attempt to pay the rent, but his good work is truly great. And this album belongs in that part of his legacy.

— Michael Cuscuna