Grant Green: under-estimated as Jazz artist, and Blue Note to blame?

[JSngry]

Yeah, people just don't think. Or feel.

[Stevie Mclean]

6 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Yeah, people just don't think. Or feel.

Hey, I do it when I feel like it.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

17 hours ago, Stevie Mclean said:

The one they attached themselves to is 5 and a half minutes into No. 1 Green Street. Listening back to the album now, there are probably 4 or 5 instances that could be considered "getting stuck" and repeating himself. I choose to believe that they are all intentional, to provide emphasis, but I won't claim that statement to move beyond the realm of belief.

Green gets "stuck" on other albums but not as much as he does on "Green Street". No matter if it's intentional or not, it's not enjoyable to me & that's all that matters when I pick up something to listen to, no matter what the Jazz police i.e. JSngry, have to say.

Green was a known drug user so you have to wonder if he was a little more "mellow" for this session than he was on others.

[Dan Gould]

15 hours ago, Stevie Mclean said:

The ultimate irony (tragedy?) of it all is that all those friends exclusively listened to rap music. Playing some grant green was my olive branch to help them find the source of all that's good about hip-hop. I would assume that a repeated phrase wouldn't phase them considering all the rap songs that sample a single phrase or bar from a jazz song and repeat it endlessly over the ENTIRE song.

But in rap it's expected.  It's the wallpaper of the song. They are hearing jazz and can realize that the notes vary so that "repeating" becomes obvious.

I don't love hearing the repeating  but I don't hate it like Kevin does.  What I wonder is what Alfred thought of it.  It's apparent it didn't grate on his ears or he would have told Grant to run it down again and don't get "stuck".  

[JSngry]

 

[mikeweil]

16 hours ago, Milestones said:

I was struck but some of those repetitions in Green's work, which can sound like "getting stuck."  But then you realize it is an intentional part of his style.  I actually find "No. 1 Green Street" to be my favorite track from that record.

Interesting view. I found Green's repeating of phrases a welcome variation in playing style, raising the intensity with this insisting way of confirming a phrase. You can just easily get stuck in the necessity to run the changes and the lack of rhythmic variation in a linear bebop style.

[mjazzg]

This discussion has sent me back to 'Green Street' and count me in with the camp that likes the repetition. I hear it as a tension/release technique that works very effectively, like 'the drop' in dance music.

There's a conviction in holding onto the repetition for longer than most would maybe feel 'normal', to great effect. It's a 'less is more' statement as I hear it.

[JSngry]

23 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

Interesting view. I found Green's repeating of phrases a welcome variation in playing style, raising the intensity with this insisting way of confirming a phrase. You can just easily get stuck in the necessity to run the changes and the lack of rhythmic variation in a linear bebop style.

This.

[Stevie Mclean]

 

[JSngry]

There ya' go.

[clifford_thornton]

2 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Interesting view. I found Green's repeating of phrases a welcome variation in playing style, raising the intensity with this insisting way of confirming a phrase. You can just easily get stuck in the necessity to run the changes and the lack of rhythmic variation in a linear bebop style.

Yep. That's where I got the Waldron comparison (and I don't view Mal's playing as "dark" as some people do).

[mikeweil]

That's what drummer Billy Brooks called  "the power of repetition". Nobody complains when an organist holds a chord.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

23 minutes ago, mikeweil said:

That's what drummer Billy Brooks called  "the power of repetition". Nobody complains when an organist holds a chord.

Not true. The worst jazz organ use I ever saw live was when Jimmy Smith pulled out a stop and left the stage, expecting Phil Upchurch to try and solo around it. It was terrible. Jimmy was laughing when he came back on stage to push the stop back in. He knew it sucked.

[JSngry]

Ok, one person complains.

[ep1str0phy]

8 hours ago, clifford_thornton said:

Yep. That's where I got the Waldron comparison (and I don't view Mal's playing as "dark" as some people do).

I find this comparison fascinating. As someone who comes from a blues background, repetitive riffage is just part of the idiom. There isn't that much separating Grant Green from a Buddy Guy or Albert King. Green is only exceptional in that he's exercising these techniques in a more conventional jazz context. 

[jazzbo]

I see the repeating riffs that way as well. 

[clifford_thornton]

Right. And Mal definitely played the blues also.

[Dub Modal]

By chance I came across this discogs review of Sunday Mornin' by Jenell Kesler(?), which somewhat parallels the original post of this thread. 

"Norman Weinstein said of the record, “Green had the misfortune of being saddled by his record company with painfully stupid concept albums that may have contributed to his depression and drug abuse. Imagine if Impulse Records had asked Archie Shepp to do a country and western collection or a cliche-laden gospel set? Green suffered these indignities and more. Sunday Mornin' suggests just how consistently great he would have been if Blue Note had permitted him to do no-nonsense, mainstream jazz sessions.” As to this comment, I can see both sides, yet we all don’t become drug addicted because of our jobs, and Green could have easily refused to lay down these tracks, and no, I don’t think this Sunday Mornin’ is a shining hour for Grant Green."

There's more at the link. I have no idea if this critique is accurate at all. 

[Stompin at the Savoy]

28 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

By chance I came across this discogs review of Sunday Mornin' by Jenell Kesler(?), which somewhat parallels the original post of this thread. 

"Norman Weinstein said of the record, “Green had the misfortune of being saddled by his record company with painfully stupid concept albums that may have contributed to his depression and drug abuse. Imagine if Impulse Records had asked Archie Shepp to do a country and western collection or a cliche-laden gospel set? Green suffered these indignities and more. Sunday Mornin' suggests just how consistently great he would have been if Blue Note had permitted him to do no-nonsense, mainstream jazz sessions.” As to this comment, I can see both sides, yet we all don’t become drug addicted because of our jobs, and Green could have easily refused to lay down these tracks, and no, I don’t think this Sunday Mornin’ is a shining hour for Grant Green."

There's more at the link. I have no idea if this critique is accurate at all. 

I kind of agree that some of the concept albums were dumb and wish there had been more sessions like Solid.

[Stevie Mclean]

30 minutes ago, Dub Modal said:

By chance I came across this discogs review of Sunday Mornin' by Jenell Kesler(?), which somewhat parallels the original post of this thread. 

"Norman Weinstein said of the record, “Green had the misfortune of being saddled by his record company with painfully stupid concept albums that may have contributed to his depression and drug abuse. Imagine if Impulse Records had asked Archie Shepp to do a country and western collection or a cliche-laden gospel set? Green suffered these indignities and more. Sunday Mornin' suggests just how consistently great he would have been if Blue Note had permitted him to do no-nonsense, mainstream jazz sessions.” As to this comment, I can see both sides, yet we all don’t become drug addicted because of our jobs, and Green could have easily refused to lay down these tracks, and no, I don’t think this Sunday Mornin’ is a shining hour for Grant Green."

There's more at the link. I have no idea if this critique is accurate at all. 

I think Sunday Mornin' is a shining hour for Grant Green, and Goin' West, and The Latin Bit, and.... come to think of it, I think grant had more of a shining decade than a shining hour.

I do agree that many other bridled artists do not become depressed drug addicts. However, I think that it is even more important to point out that a significant amount of free (by definition, not genre) artists (especially Grant's peers) were still depressed drug addicts, despite not having much apparent constraint put on their creative expression. The constraints imposed on other aspects of their lives are another conversation entirely. I posit that those other constraints would have had more of an effect on the mental state of those artists than any amount of concept albums ever could.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I was not aware that Blue Note somewhat assigned these concept albums to Grant Green. Is this true?

[mjzee]

3 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I was not aware that Blue Note somewhat assigned these concept albums to Grant Green. Is this true?

Someone should ask Herbie Hancock about the true genesis of these albums - he was on most of them.

[JSngry]

Producers produce, up to and including suggesting material. That's part of their job.

"Forcing" or the implication thereof is too strong a world, especially none of those records even come close to sucking.

BTW - when Grant came back to BN, after Lion had left, he went HARD away from "straight ahead" jazz.

[mjzee]

I always got the impression that Grant enjoyed the wide range of styles.  I'd expand the list of titles under these concept albums to include Street of Dreams (samba) and Am I Blue (blues).

[felser]

8 hours ago, Stompin at the Savoy said:

I kind of agree that some of the concept albums were dumb and wish there had been more sessions like Solid.

Or that they had released the sessions like Solid, Matador, Blues for Lou, Gooden's Corner, Nigeria, Oleo, etc. back in the day instead of the gimmick  concept albums.

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

BTW - when Grant came back to BN, after Lion had left, he went HARD away from "straight ahead" jazz.

I love many of those later BN groove albums of his.

Edited May 29 by felser