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Grant Green was born in St. Louis on June 6,
1931, learned his instrument in grade school
from his guitar-playing father and was
playing professionally by the age of thirteen
with a gospel group. He worked gigs in his
home town and in East St. Louis, IL, until he
moved to New York in 1960 at the suggestion
of Lou Donaldson. Green told Dan Morgenstern
in a Down Beat interview: "The first thing I
learned to play was boogie-woogie. Then I had
to do a lot of rock & roll. It's all blues,
anyhow."
His extensive foundation in R&B combined with
a mastery of bebop and simplicity that put
expressiveness ahead of technical expertise.
Green was a superb blues interpreter, and his
later material was predominantly blues and
R&B, though he was also a wondrous ballad and
standards soloist. He was a particular
admirer of Charlie Parker, and his phrasing
often reflected it. Green played in the '50s
with Jimmy Forrest, Harry Edison, and Lou
Donaldson.
He also collaborated with many organists,
among them Brother Jack McDuff, Sam Lazar,
Baby Face Willette, Gloria Coleman, Big John
Patton, and Larry Young. During the early
'60s, both his fluid, tasteful playing in
organ/guitar/drum combos and his other dates
for Blue Note established Green as a star,
though he seldom got the critical respect
given other players. He was off the scene for
a bit in the mid-'60s, but came back strong
in the late '60s and '70s. Green played with
Stanley Turrentine, Dave Bailey, Yusef
Lateef, Joe Henderson, Hank Mobley, Herbie
Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones.
Sadly, drug problems interrupted his career
in the '60s, and undoubtedly contributed to
the illness he suffered in the late '70s.
Green was hospitalized in 1978 and died a
year later. Despite some rather uneven LPs
near the end of his career, the great body of
his work represents marvelous soul-jazz,
bebop, and blues.
A severely underrated player during his
lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great
unsung heroes of jazz guitar. Like Stanley
Turrentine, he tends to be left out of the
books. Although he mentions Charlie Christian
and Jimmy Raney as influences, Green always
claimed he listened to horn players (Charlie
Parker and Miles Davis) and not other guitar
players, and it shows. No other player has
this kind of single-note linearity (he avoids
chordal playing). There is very little of the
intellectual element in Green's playing, and
his technique is always at the service of his
music. And it is music, plain and simple,
that makes Green unique.
Green's playing is immediately recognizable
— perhaps more than any other guitarist.
Green has been almost systematically ignored
by jazz buffs with a bent to the cool side,
and he has only recently begun to be
appreciated for his incredible musicality.
Perhaps no guitarist has ever handled
standards and ballads with the brilliance of
Grant Green.
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