Grant Green – Alive! (Blue Note, 1970)

Grant Green (g); Claude Bartee (ts); Willie Bivens (vib); Neal Creque (org); Ronnie Foster (org); Idris Muhammad (d); Joseph Armstrong (cga)

Recorded on August 15, 1970

After only recording sporadically in the latter half of the 1960s due to "health issues" (a euphemism for drug addiction used by jazz publications back in the day), Grant Green returned to Blue Note at the close of the decade.  He recorded Carryin' On (Blue Note, 1969) and Green Is Beautiful (Blue Note, 1970) shortly thereafter.  Alive!, the subject of today's post, was Green's third album after returning to the label.  As the title implies, it's a live record, made at the Cliché Lounge in Newark in the summer of 1970.  All three of these records drew the ire of jazz purists who preferred Green's "classic" hard-bop over the jazz-funk sounds heard on these albums. 

Bob Porter's book Soul Jazz: Jazz in the Black Community, 1945-1975 (XLIBRIS, 2016) is a useful counterbalance to these criticisms.  Although Porter never recorded Green, he was a friend.  In the book, Porter explains that Green at the time felt stifled by traditional jazz like he'd made in the early-60s.  Green was ready to move on. The decision to make funky jazz was entirely Green's own.  He regarded it as an evolution of his art.

Like many jazz fans, I love Green's Blue Note albums like Grantstand (1962), Idle Moments (1963), and Street of Dreams (1964).  But I think Green's jazz-funk is also interesting, particularly the music that he released on Alive!  The band is outstanding. Claude Bartee's tenor work is rock solid, and the funk drumming master Idris Muhammad lays down an irresistible groove. Neal Creque and Ronnie Foster share organ duties, and Willie Bivins' vibes add interesting colors to the mix.

Of course, Green sounds terrific too -- especially if one understands that his playing is necessarily more groove-oriented and less solo-oriented in a funky-jazz context.  In a 2018 JazzTimes feature on Green, guitarist Miles Okazaki discussed Green's deceptive simplicity:

In his teens Okazaki was turned off by the repetition in Green’s playing. But later, he recalls, “When I became more hip to African music, where the point is to create a vibe or a trance, I could hear that in his playing. He’s creating a kind of motion. It challenges the expectation of what a solo is.” The overall effect of a Green solo, he adds, isn’t captured on the notated page. “If you transcribe some Coltrane or Bud Powell,” he says, “you’re going to get a lot of information. If you transcribe Grant’s solos and analyze them, you’re not really going to get a lot. Because the information is not the whole story.” 

One discographical note: If you investigate this music, be sure to listen to the CD release that adds three bonus tracks recorded at the same gig.  These extra cuts are just as strong as the music on the original LP, and -- unlike some bonus cuts, which can destroy an album's unity -- they integrate perfectly with the music on the original release.  It's not always true, but sometimes more is better.

More Grant Green
I'm partial to Green's live recordings from the 1970s. So, after listening to Alive!, I would point interested listeners in the direction of Live at the Lighthouse (Blue Note, 1972) and Live at Club Mozambique (Blue Note, recorded 1971; released 2006).