Jump to content

Grant Green - Am I Blue


robertoart

Recommended Posts

Ok, after all this discussion I pulled my copy of "Am I Blue" off the shelf. Haven't listened to it in quite some time. After listening to it I know why. In my view it is not a strong musical outing by these fine musicians. The first tune, the title piece, was ok, but the next one "Take These Chains From My Heart" was downright poor, if not worse than that. The tune itself is trite and boring, and the playing dull. The repetitive backbeat by Ben Dixon quickly became deadly. The next 2 tunes were also just passable - ok. The final track,  "For All We Know"  is a tune that ranks among my favorites, but not the version performed here. I have heard numerous performances of this tune that were miles and miles ahead of this mediocre  14 minute performance.

Mellow playing of ballads and medium tempo pieces can be wonderful. That just did not happen at  this session. The rich harmonies and creative interesting playing that can make tunes such as these (excepting  "Take These Chains...)   worthwhile listening experiences unfortunately are missing.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez said:

 

hey!  that last sentance-------whats that about, lion enjoyed listening to Am I Blue to relax, in his older years, you have heard?  just wanted to clairfy. maybe it was one of his favorites then

It's information taken from the interview with Ruth Lion from the Andrews-Green book. She (RL) makes special mention of the song Am I Blue from this session. Interestingly Kenny Burrell says that Alfred Lion had Midnight Blue placed with him in his coffin when he was interned. So we know that Alfred was listening to Am I Blue at the death knell and then was forever attached to Midnight Blue after the knell, so to speak.

I'm hoping to give this one a good listen in the car cd player on my long lonely drive to my night shift job tomorrow night. Long stretches of dark brooding freeways and liminal lighting etc... the hard part is taking one of my prized Toshiba mini lps out of the archive and 'into the wild' of the car. Like Georghe says, those mini lps were a bit of a boon back in the day, 'cause Toshiba was the only one with a comprehensive re-issue schedule back then, before the days of ebay etc. Am I Blue was one of those that wouldn't have been heard otherwise. I used to get them via International phone call to a store in California (I think), that specialised in imported releases from Japan into the States.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, robertoart said:

It's information taken from the interview with Ruth Lion from the Andrews-Green book. She (RL) makes special mention of the song Am I Blue from this session. Interestingly Kenny Burrell says that Alfred Lion had Midnight Blue placed with him in his coffin when he was interned. So we know that Alfred was listening to Am I Blue at the death knell and then was forever attached to Midnight Blue after the knell, so to speak.

I'm hoping to give this one a good listen in the car cd player on my long lonely drive to my night shift job tomorrow night. Long stretches of dark brooding freeways and liminal lighting etc... the hard part is taking one of my prized Toshiba mini lps out of the archive and 'into the wild' of the car. Like Georghe says, those mini lps were a bit of a boon back in the day, 'cause Toshiba was the only one with a comprehensive re-issue schedule back then, before the days of ebay etc. Am I Blue was one of those that wouldn't have been heard otherwise. I used to get them via International phone call to a store in California (I think), that specialised in imported releases from Japan into the States.

*I* would not play this on a "long lonely drive"! Depending on the hour of night, I might wake up in a ditch on the side of the road. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Well i did get to give this a good listen on the car cd player, and no I didn't drive into a ditch:) I can kinda agree with some of the criticisms, Big John is a bit droney and the Ray Charles song is a bit hokey in a way. I think I need to find a NYUSA vangelder Stereo to really assess it though :D I might give Goin West a revisit now. I can hardly remember spinning that more than a few times years ago. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, robertoart said:

Well i did get to give this a good listen on the car cd player, and no I didn't drive into a ditch:) I can kinda agree with some of the criticisms, Big John is a bit droney and the Ray Charles song is a bit hokey in a way. I think I need to find a NYUSA vangelder Stereo to really assess it though :D I might give Goin West a revisit now. I can hardly remember spinning that more than a few times years ago. 

FWIW, Goin West gets a lot more spins at my place than Am I Blue, comparatively GW is positively sparkling.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 years later...

Mellow stuff.  Kind of grows on you.  Sleepy time music.  All play well but very laid back! Joe Henderson especially.  Grant Green is mining the deep mellow grooves.  And Big John Patton is just sailing along filling in the details.  Okay for an occasional listen but not essential.  The RVG edition sounds great on CD. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Like others my assessment of this has improved since I first heard it, but only from “lame” to “ok”, ie I’ve gotten over the disappointment of expectations set up by the lineup and can enjoy the music but don’t find it compelling.

I like the Ray Charles tune!

IMHO despite a similarity in “mood” it falls far short of Idle Moments

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder whether there's an interesting story to be told about Alfred Lion's producer relationship with Grant Green.  It seems that Lion charged Green to record albums in many different musical genres.  There was spiritual (Feelin' The Spirit), country (Goin' West), latin (The Latin Bit), and somber (Am I Blue).  I wonder if there was something in Lion's working relationship with Green - maybe he was more amenable to these sorts of suggestions, or maybe Green simply felt comfortable in many different genres (or maybe I'm incorrect, and these genre-defined albums were Green's idea).  But I don't think Lion asked this of any other BN artist.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, mjzee said:

I wonder whether there's an interesting story to be told about Alfred Lion's producer relationship with Grant Green.  It seems that Lion charged Green to record albums in many different musical genres.  There was spiritual (Feelin' The Spirit), country (Goin' West), latin (The Latin Bit), and somber (Am I Blue).  I wonder if there was something in Lion's working relationship with Green - maybe he was more amenable to these sorts of suggestions, or maybe Green simply felt comfortable in many different genres (or maybe I'm incorrect, and these genre-defined albums were Green's idea).  But I don't think Lion asked this of any other BN artist.

An interesting question, KB did the all blues Midnight Blue and Jackie McLean Bluesnick,  and there were a few tribute albums by others.  I think it was mostly Grant's natural versatility and his relative weakness as a composer and he made a lot of albums for BN so there was both more opportunity and more need for this sort of thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...