Grant Green: Organ Trio & Quartet

[robertoart]

Ludwig recalls the likes of Grant Green, and Larry Young recording for them as well.

This statement does not explicitely claim that Larry Young is the organist on Iron City and almost seems to imply that there was a separate Young recording, but since no such recording has ever surfaced to my knowledge, I assume that Ludwig meant that Green and Young were on the same record date.

I need to wander over to Amazon to see what else Mr. Klein has to say about this session.

Bertrand.

Yeh, that's the way I read it too.

It does back up the Amazon posting though.

Unfortunately my ears are not as attuned to recognising particular organists, as well as I can identify guitarists and certain saxophonists.

I always assumed anyone that knew Larry Young's sound intimately would identify him as the player (or not) automatically.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Very interesting.

MG

[robertoart]

If the 'Travis Klein Amazon' post is correct, and he titled the blues on the album 'Iron City', it suggests the title 'Iron City March'? was kept in use by Grant Green for the unissued Verve Session.

Placing the 'Iron City' recording to between 'His Majesty King Funk' and the unissued Verve, or thereabouts.

So between May 1965 and August 1965. This would change the context from the previous attribution of 'Iron City' to 1967 or later.

Grant Green and others

Grant Green (g) and others

NYC, August 5, 1965

65VK427 Iron City March Verve unissued

65VK428 Angel -

65VK429 Fat Judy -

65VK430 Samba De Orfeu -

65VK431 Chim Chim Cheree -

Grant Green and others

same personnel

NYC, September 1, 1965

65VK458 Things Ain't What They Used To Be Verve unissued

65VK459 Moon Over All -

65VK460 I Can't Stop Loving You -

65VK461 High Heel Sneakers -

65VK462 Blues Train -

65VK463 Sunday, Monday Or Always -

65VK464 Fever -

65VK465 Dream -

65VK466 Uptown -

Edited March 10, 2012 by freelancer

[Eric]

Over at the Hoffman Forums, a poster found this information regarding an Amazon review that solves one part of the mystery of the Iron City session.

The Real Story, November 1, 2010

By Travis Klein (Pittsburgh, PA, USA) - See all my reviews

(REAL NAME)

This review is from: Iron City (Audio CD)

The real story of Grant Green's Iron City album is that in 1965 ( I think) he was playing at a club in Pittsburgh called the Hurricane Lounge which was well known as a home for organ trios. A mutual friend came to me and said that Grant needed money to cop and he would be willing to record an album in exchange for the money. I immediately called Gateway Studios in downtown Pittsburgh and scheduled time. When I showed up they were just about done and didn't have a title for the one original. Since we were in Pittsburgh I called it "Iron City." We were the distributors for Prestige Records in Pittsburgh so I called Joe Fields, who was Prestige's sales manager, and offered to sell him the master. Two years later Joe went to work for Buddah Records and they had a new jazz label which they called Cobblestone. Iron City came out as Cobblestone 9002 originally. This album was recorded between his Blue Note early releases and His Majesty King Funk on Verve and I personally never thought it measured up. But 45 years later it holds up pretty darn well.

I also found this snipet from the Gene Ludwig site to further confirm.

One night during a gig at the Hurricane Ludwig was approached by Travis Klein. Klein was a young entrepreneur who ran a local one-stop with his father. Their distributor branched out into a label, Travis Records. They recorded musicians who traveled through Pittsburgh and released singles by Johnny Lytle and Eddie Chamblee. Ludwig recalls the likes of Grant Green, and Larry Young recording for them as well. “Travis came to see us play and he said ‘Me and my dad have a one-stop right up the street.’ He said ‘If you aren’t signed with anybody we might be able to record and release some stuff.’ So we went up there and struck a deal.”

It appears that Travis Klein maintains the Pittsburgh Music Hall Of Fame page on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pittsburgh-Music-Hall-of-Fame/152551968154498

Last summer he made a post similar to the one made above. I "commented" on the post, asking who the organist was - Big John or Larry Young. Hell, maybe it was Gene Ludwig, who was once recorded by Klein ("The Educated Sound of Gene Ludwig" on Travis Records from 1965).

Edited March 4, 2014 by Eric