Diego Melgar

10-6-2018

Grant’s Dimensions

What does an average person imagine when they think of a guitar? Some people may

hear long overdriven notes, singing out like a soloist in a choir with a wide vibrato. Some people

may hear lush chords, six strings somehow imitating an orchestra with a palette of vibrant

colors. Others may imagine a guitarist noodling around, pushing technique for technique’s sake,

fitting as many notes into a beat as they can. Grant Green’s guitar playing, then, may seem a bit

strange. Percussive and rhythmic in nature with a clear glass-like tone piercing through the mix,

even those well versed in the stylings of Wes Montgomery and other jazz guitar greats will

notice something is odd. Very rarely will more than one note come out of Grant’s guitar, and

during a time when every jazz musician seemed to be exploring every nook and cranny of

harmonic possibilities and substitutions, as Grant’s career went on, he moved to more simple

pentatonic and diatonic ideas. The individuality, rhythm, and humanity of Grant Green’s music is

what takes this unorthodox guitarist to the heights of praise he has now achieved.

Just as mankind entered the swing era, Grant Green was born on June 6th, 1935, the

first and only child of Martha and John Green, in St. Louis, Missouri. From a young age, the

young Green would be drawn to music, singing in a school choir, playing for the school drum

corps, and annoying his teacher by playing on a ukulele whenever she’d turn away, to the

amusement of his classmates. By age 13, Grant was making money by playing in churches

around town and developing his blues and gospel traits that would follow him for the rest of his

career. At the same time, he’d be staying up late at night transcribing Charlie Parker, one of his
idols. One of the reasons for his unique style is his strong influence drawn from horn players

rather than guitar players. Grant admired Charlie Christian and certainly had respect for some of

his six-stringed contemporaries such as Jimmy Raney and Wes Montgomery (though he

maintained that the latter “...can play, but he gotta get a pick!”), the influence of saxophonists

like Charlie Parker and Lester Young would provide a foundation for his revolutionary style.

Sometime in the second half of 1960, Grant made the move to New York from St. Louis.

When Grant left St. Louis, he had plenty of experience performing and his distinct style seemed

to be completely formed by this time. He had plenty of help from Lou Donaldson whom he met

in a bar in St. Louis, and would be a key figure in Grant’s career, from booking him for various

sessions, to recommending him for gigs. One of the people who Lou recommended Grant to

was Alfred Lion, the founder of Blue Note records. This relationship would bare some beautiful

fruits, as Grant Green soon became a vital part of the Blue Note Sound that the label had

become so beloved for. Alfred loved Grant’s sound so much, in fact, that he gave him a session

as a leader to start, as opposed to the usual procedure of testing a player out as a sideman on a

few sides before they’d get their own shot. Before 1961 came to an end, Grant had recorded

had been part of 30 different sessions for the Blue Note record label.

Grant’s 1962 recording of “It Ain’t Necessarily So” shows a great picture of his playing at

the time while giving some signals as to where his career would eventually veer towards.

Working with some of the most respected musicians of the time (Art Blakey, Sam Jones, and

Sonny Clarke) only a short year after his first record was released, Grant was working often and

gaining the respect of his peers. With this confidence behind him, Grant abstracts the Gershwin

classic to fit within his musical world, until it’s barely recognizable as the original song. Later in

his career, we will again see this concept of taking popular songs and twisting and bending

them until they fit into Grant’s vision, with little regard to recognizability. The contrast between
the two halves of the form, four bars of a single chord followed by four bars of descending ii-V

allow two very different sides of his style to shine. The first four bars of every chorus carry a

loose bluesy quality, often hanging onto to one pentatonic motif, with the the second four bars

allowing him to play linear bebop ideas that move through different key centers. The rhythmic

intensity of 3:40 is a technique that appears throughout his career, as we will see in one of the

later tracks. Grant also shows in this solo his awareness to some of the harmonic ideas going

on around him, such as a sly use of the whole tone scale which garners an audible response

from a bandmate and a single use of the natural 7th on the Eb minor of the tune on the trading.

Grant’s relationship to other guitar players is very complicated. When asked who has the

“knowledge” on guitar in an interview, he replied “Wes Montgomery, then myself”. He held many

of his peers in high regard, such as Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery, but carried a certain

sense of cockiness. George Benson is quoted as saying “He wore green suits. He had a green

Cadillac. Had a green guitar. Does that tell you how Grant felt about Grant Green? But, see,

people forced him to think like that because they worshipped him. Everybody loved him.”

Benson and Montgomery would become important figures in Grant’s life. As their stars

continued to rise and reach across to wider audiences, Grant would become envious of their

success. He felt that he had contributed just as much to the world of jazz guitar, and that

George in particular had taken a lot of his ideas from him. George felt the same way in fact, later

in life paying for all of Grant’s medical bills after a stroke in 1978, saying “I can’t go around

saying I’m the No. 1 jazz guitar player and I know you’re the No.1...I’ll spend all my money to

help you to get up out of here because it pains me to see you here.”

The next recording I’d like to observe is “I Wish You Love” from the album “Street of

Dreams”, recorded in 1964. Again joined by heavyweights (Larry Young, Bobby Hutcherson,

and oddly enough another member of the Jones clan, Elvin Jones), this cut really allows Grant’s
sense of melody to shine. From the verse onto the melody of the tune, Grant takes this

bittersweet standard that speaks of broken hearts and goodbyes and puts it through his

rhythmic lens. In just his statement of the melody, many of the Green-isms that make him so

unique shine through. The trills on the B string, the very subtle vibrato, the sharp staccato jabs,

sliding into notes to accent them, repeatedly sliding into one note rather than just holding it out,

all favorite weapons in the arsenal. By this point, Grant Green’s vision and voice had become

more solidified than his prior recordings, even though those were already distinctive. Grant had

been developing a musical world and language that by the time of this recording had been

nearly perfected it seems. Striking an amazing balance between developing motifs in creative

fashions and introducing fresh ideas to keep interest and energy up, the inspired solo Grant

takes on this tune unfolds so naturally that listeners can find themselves entranced by the

stream of conscious before them. I know I do everytime I listen to this particular solo.

For this next recording we will take a look at, Grant leaves his second home of the Van

Gelder Studio in Englewood, New Jersey for the live setting of the Lighthouse Cafe in Hermosa

Beach California. But this is far from the only difference in this 1972 recording from his earlier

sides. Covering a relatively obscure and short lived soul funk band The Fabulous Counts’ nearly

chart topping song “Jan Jan”, Grant and his band take the tempo up to real forward driven funk

tempo. Grant had explored modal tunes in his past such as Miles Davis’ “So What”, his own

interpretation of the “So What” form in his composition “Green Jeans” which borrows the idea of

one chord with a B section that is up a half step, and a fascinating take on “My Favorite Things”

with the dynamic duo of McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones who four years prior to that recording

had made a hit with that song as part of John Coltrane’s quartet. Grant had also explored more

groove oriented music apart from the usual straight ahead jazz he came up in, such as the

proto-funk cut of “Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho” and the nearly New-Orleans sounding “The
Selma March”. But by this point in his career, Grant Green’s music had taken a radical turn,

influenced by the rise of James Brown, and the hard swinging straight ahead jazz that brought

him to prominence had been traded in for hard hitting funk.

On the surface, one might think this is an uninspired move by a jazz musician falling out

of the spotlight attempting to regain relevance by riding the trends of the times. I believe,

however, that this notion falls apart once you hear Grant Green playing this cut of “Jan Jan”.

Bursting with energy from the start, the guitar and saxophone unison melody soon morphs into

a vamp that Grant weaves through with some of the most rhymically intricate, deep pocket

guitar playing this side of Eddie Hazel and Niles Rodgers. Even though much of the bebop

language is absent in favor of largely pentatonic ideas, every other aspect of Grant’s playing

seems amplified. Every motif is given attention and care as it morphs into the next, creating a

never ending build up of intensity that even the crowd reacts to, as evidenced by the shouts

heard throughout the solo. From about 2:30 until around 2:55 could reasonably be argued as

one of the peaks of Grant’s musicality. The simplicity, repetition, development and just pure

sonic quality of these 15 seconds could raise the dead and get them moving. Grant takes one

simple idea, repeats it over and over as the band builds in intensity behind him, and then as if

kicking it into the next gear, he goes into double stops that at once seem to cry the pains of life

as well as sing it praises.

Grant Green is a deceptively complex person. His playing on the surface may at first

seem bluesy and formulaic. But this betrays the knowledge of form, motivic development, ability

to draw out the most beautiful tones out of a guitar and unsurpassed swing feel and rhythmic

concept. Grant Green, the man, also shares this quality. On the surface is a country boy who

talks a little slow and a little slurred, who was just trying to make a living and support his family

while enjoying life. But as in his playing, there is much more to the humanity of Grant Green. He
would stay aware of issues of his time, was a devout muslim (which makes one wonder if his

rhythmic weaving isn’t in some tangential way inspired by Islamic geometric art), somewhat of

an absent father, and a struggling heroin addict. But for all his ups and downs, Grant Green left

a mark on this world that won’t be going away anytime soon and will keep people tapping their

toes for years to come. When I think of the hardships he endured in his life, the mistakes he

made, the mountains he climbed, and the warmth that people who knew him talk of, I can’t help

but imagine of him stating simply the title of the last track from “Club Mozambique”. I am

Somebody.