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Grant Green: "Iron City"


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No this is different - these are the contracts signed by the artists. If that Grant Green Left Bank tape is ever located, no one could put it out without clearance from whatever label he was signed with on the day of the recording. In this case, it was probably no label, but no one wants to be Palo-Altod.

Edited by bertrand
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4 hours ago, bertrand said:

The saga never ends. The subject of Wayne Shorter's Vee Jay and Blue Note contracts came up on the Mosaic/Frank Wolff photos Facebook page. So I asked about Grant. Apparently:

1) Grant was on loan to Verve and still with Blue Note in 1965. Does it say courtesy of Blue Note on the King Funk record?

Grant, no. Larry Young, yes:

R-13869861-1562957172-5405.jpeg.jpg

But look at the publishing here...not that Grant had a lot of compositions to his credit at this time, but...

R-1722891-1602841906-1990.jpeg.jpg

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john patton is SO distinctive i dont see how we can not ID it correctly by ear.  Maybe my ear isnt the best for the job but I do know from my love of organ jazz BJP is one of the MOST distintive sounds..........so unless he COMPLETELY ALTERED IS USUAL ORGAN SETTING FOR THIS DATE, im leaning toward someone else- Larry Young I dont know either why did his name even get thrown in to this, ill look back , but some people suggested a 3rd party, im not opposed.........

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1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Grant, no. Larry Young, yes:

R-13869861-1562957172-5405.jpeg.jpg

But look at the publishing here...not that Grant had a lot of compositions to his credit at this time, but...

R-1722891-1602841906-1990.jpeg.jpg

I'm not buying the story with Grant Green being on loan from Blue Note. Larry had not even recorded Unity yet...

39 minutes ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

john patton is SO distinctive i dont see how we can not ID it correctly by ear.  Maybe my ear isnt the best for the job but I do know from my love of organ jazz BJP is one of the MOST distintive sounds..........so unless he COMPLETELY ALTERED IS USUAL ORGAN SETTING FOR THIS DATE, im leaning toward someone else- Larry Young I dont know either why did his name even get thrown in to this, ill look back , but some people suggested a 3rd party, im not opposed.........

I think John Patton told our fellow member that it was Larry. For me, the fact that the organist plays the Love Supreme vamp pretty much all through Go Down Moses points towards Larry.

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2 hours ago, bertrand said:

I'm not buying the story with Grant Green being on loan from Blue Note. Larry had not even recorded Unity yet...

I think John Patton told our fellow member that it was Larry. For me, the fact that the organist plays the Love Supreme vamp pretty much all through Go Down Moses points towards Larry.

BJP was no fool, he was probably the greatest mind i ever shook hands with.  If BJP said it then case closed.

revewing thread and lots of great info- good job everybody, but whats the origin of the cockup with Pattons name getting attached attributed to?

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8 hours ago, bertrand said:

I'm not buying the story with Grant Green being on loan from Blue Note. Larry had not even recorded Unity yet...

But what about Into Something?

"Greenbay Music" publishing...does not sound like a record-company front...Lion could be kinda snockywonky about publishing...maybe there was a tiff about this and the other original tunes (Lay-Up" Publishing?)? And maybe Grant had a session tape or rehearsal tape that he, uh, "liberated" from BN and that's what he sold for dope money.

There are definitively "non-linear" aspects in this story, and we will likely never know the full, unvarnished saga. So let's just make shit up and develop into a movie about Miles having a tape that gangsters were after him about. that was a pretty good movie, imo!

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1 hour ago, JSngry said:

So let's just make shit up and develop into a movie about Miles having a tape that gangsters were after him about. that was a pretty good movie, imo!

Re: Cheadle’s Miles movie, I concur! Was it wonky? Sure! - hell, by BOTH definitions of the term ‘wonky’...

1) crooked; off-center; askew.

2) an enthusiastic or excessive interest in the specialized details of a particular subject.

But man, there were a lot of factual details woven into that story — guys shooting at Miles thru his car door, for one. The ‘lost’ session from 1978. I forget all the rest, but like half a dozen or more oddball details that were all shit that really happened (but maybe not in the same year the movie purported them to have happened).

A lot of that movie might not have been literally true, but there was a shit-ton of ‘truth’ in that movie — and I think Cheadle got to ‘an’ essence of Miles (if not ‘the’ essence), and a lot more than most biopics ever do.

Edited by Rooster_Ties
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6 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I had a good time in the theatre and had a good hot dog in the lobby. Worth both my time and my money. Entertainment!

I have never ever considered a hot dog in a movie theater.

I think the only way I could would be if Nathan's operated the theater.

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There's a Seinfeld episode that weaves in a bit about the daring souls who venture to eat a movie theater hot dog. I will say though that right before COVID hit, movie theater food was getting decent beyond just the popcorn and candy options...and I dug aspects of that Miles movie too. But I can't stand the typical Hollywood biopics anyway - absolutely no wonkiness to be found, instead it's a bunch of sentimentality and cornball cliches. 

I've got Iron City on LP and a bunch of Patton CDs (and some Larry Young). I'm going to have to deep dive into these next time I have a lengthy listening session. Maybe I'll cook a hot dog too. 

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34 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

I will say though that right before COVID hit, movie theater food was getting decent beyond just the popcorn and candy options...

Starting at least 8 years ago, my wife and I had the option in Boca Raton of dinner (decent bar food) plus unlimited popcorn and love seats for the movie portion. This was one of the earliest adaptors of the "premium" seating - That was a nice place to go.  (And nearly 40 years ago when I arrived for college in Tallahassee, there were not one but two theaters selling beer - not the same, but pretty cool at the time, and it stayed that way when I got grandfathered in to the the 19 year old drinking age.)

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  • 1 year later...

Interesting thread. It is 100% Larry Young. That's obvious from his solo on Samba de Orpheus and his chord voicings on High Heeled Sneakers. I think the confusion is augmented by the gnarly tone of the organ itself because we associate Larry with that clean, precise tone of the Blue Note records. Also, he's playing a LOT of pedals on Iron City, which he doesn't do on the BN stuff. But my guess is that the organ and the material coaxed him to play it a certain way, maybe a tad more traditional than he usually did. Remember, he did two albums on Prestige that are straight up old-school JOS style Hammond before he started doing his own thing. Those two Prestige albums don't 'sound' like Young at all.

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  • 7 months later...
  • 4 months later...

Great work guys!  The phrasing is definitely Larry Young.

Was the recording date ever definitively nailed down?

On Nov. 15, 2023, Travis Klein posted on Facebook: "On this date in Pittsburgh music history, November 15, 1965, the Grant Green Organ Trio began a week's performance at the Hurricane. This is when we recorded the "Iron City" album."

Does the master tape box / session log not exist?  Were the musician contracts located? Green's last date as a Blue Note leader before his hiatus was March 1965 (I Want To Hold Your Hand). Was Green under contract to Blue Note that expired in 1965?

Green made recordings for Verve as a leader in August and September 1965.  After that he does some sideman dates for Blue Note and Prestige in 1966 before returning to the studio in 1969.

Klein's recollection of a November 15, 1965 recording date seems plausible.   Can Larry Young be placed in Pittsburgh that week?

Observation: Larry Young's Unity  LP was recorded November 10, 1965.     

The next studio entry for Young is Woody Shaw's In The Beginning LP recorded in December 1965.

So it does look like there was a potential window for Young to gig with Green in PA starting November 15, 1965 and possibly record the Iron City album at that time.

Edited by monkboughtlunch
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Like I wrote above, Green Patton Dixon was advertised in Pittsburgh for 15 November 1965... So, as argued above, Young's involvement is more plausible during the summer... Maybe there was more than one recording date...

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On 5/8/2021 at 10:00 AM, Niko said:

speaking of cool free resources, this here is a free newspaper archive for Indiana, including the Indianapolis recorder... the same lineup with Watson and Clarke is advertised there once more on February 6 1965... but on February 20 1965, the lineup has changed, JC Moses has joined the band and (somewhat surprisingly) Jane Getz is playing the piano in the Grant Green Trio...

indianapolisrecorder2t5jg9.jpg

here is one more 31 December 1966, almost two years later...

indianapolisrecorder3zij0b.jpg

 

what this suggests to me is that there was a period of JC Moses / Green / Young either before ore (more likely given Young's travel to Europe) after the lineup JC Moses / Green / Getz...

Nice work Niko!  Has anyone reached out to Jane Getz to see if her gig/s with Grant Green were privately recorded? 

Edited by monkboughtlunch
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1 hour ago, Niko said:

Like I wrote above, Green Patton Dixon was advertised in Pittsburgh for 15 November 1965... So, as argued above, Young's involvement is more plausible during the summer... Maybe there was more than one recording date...

Good sleuthing!  Summer 65 does seem more plausible than the Nov. 65 date Klein now posits.

Do we know who took the photo Heid posted?  Are there any more photos from that gig?  It appears Mr. Heid has passed away:  https://www.wzum.org/jazz-blog/2023/06/30/mcgjazz-

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 2/11/2024 at 11:44 PM, monkboughtlunch said:

Good sleuthing!  Summer 65 does seem more plausible than the Nov. 65 date Klein now posits.

Do we know who took the photo Heid posted?  Are there any more photos from that gig?  It appears Mr. Heid has passed away:  https://www.wzum.org/jazz-blog/2023/06/30/mcgjazz-

45253952rd.jpg

 

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