Picking my favorite Grant Green is like picking my favorite Archer joke, as pretty much all of his albums that he recorded for Blue Note in the early 1960s are essential jazz, especially for guitar players. As such, I’m going to cheat and go with three of them.
Artist: Grant Green
Album: The Complete Quartets With Sonny Clark
Genre: Hard Bop, Soul Jazz
Rating: 9.5/10
This collection of three Green albums – Gooden’s Corner, Nigeria, and Oleo – feature him and pianist Sonny Clark at the top of their game. The album opens with the fast paced “Airegin,” which does an excellent job of demonstrating Grant’s lyrical and clear playing, and features a drum solo by Art Motherfucking Blakey. The album only gets better from there.
Honestly, it’s interesting how this album is mostly credited to Grant Green, as he and Clark play so well together that you’d expect this album to be credited as a duet or something like that. I’m not kidding: both of these guys play off of each other incredibly well, and Clark’s playing is incredibly tasteful and compliments Green perfectly. The fact that there are no horns prevents their playing from ever becoming hopelessly muddled, and allows them to really have the spotlight. Art Blakey’s playing on the first disc (Nigeria), helps even further. Not only does compliment both players well, but when they trade fours with him in songs such as “The Song is You,” and let him rip in “Airegin,” he easily shows why he’s one of the best jazz drummers out there.
The second disc, Gooden’s Corner, opens up with Sonny Clark’s amazing piano playing on “On Green Dolphin street.” Unfortunately, here comes the only problem that I have with the album: Louis Hayes is a great drummer, but he’s no Art Blakey. As such, the backing behind Clark and Green tends feel not as good after the first disc. That’s pretty small change when it comes to this record though, “On Green Dolphin Street” also contains a great bass solo form Sam Jones. Highlights on the disc two include Shadrack and Gooden’s Corner.
Disc three, Oleo, is more or less the same as the second (not that that’s a bad thing). Standout tracks include “Hip Funk” and “My Favorite Things.”
Despite the fact that this collection totals at slightly over two hours, the fresh playing on means that it never once feels tedious or boring. This collection does an excellent job of showing a criminally underrated guitarist at his best. Highly recommended, especially for fans of Jazz and Guitar.
Selected Tracks:
Airegin
Shadrack
Gooden’s Corner
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