Grant Green - 'I Wish You Love'

We have a few things in life to thank the French for, not least, perhaps, their appreciation of jazz and their willingness to welcome the refugees of racism from across the Atlantic. Grant Green no doubt suffered his share of abuse during his lifetime, but certainly not from Alfred Lion and Francis Wollf of Blue Note Records, where Green was the house guitarist throughout the Sixties. Given that he was arguably, along with Wes Montgomery, one of the two giants of jazz guitar during his era, it's puzzling and sad that there are no American TV clips of him at work. I had almost given up my search when I stumbled upon this video – recorded for French TV in 1969, but never broadcast (or so I believe). So let us now praise the French.

It's a very restrained affair, for all that two other great guitarists were sitting in on the session, Barney Kessel and Kenny Burrell. It's an almost forensic close-up on a technique that was less about chords and more about playing linear single notes with the clarity of glass and the acuity of razor wire. While Green picks out the melody on his Gibson (an ES-330 – although I would need to check this with my Amerikanische Freund and local guitar guru), Kessel gently strums a series of complementary chords alongside. Burrell sits out altogether. You can see all three on 'Rhythm Changes' (a catch-all title for 'How Could You Do a Thing Like That To Me'), which demonstrates Green's funkier, bluesier side and offers a rare glimpse of the maestro playing chords. Better still, watch all 32 minutes of their summit meeting, since 'Rhythm Changes' is a mere extract of the full 11-minute number.

Watching and listening to the way Grant Green played guitar, you can discern immediately the influence of Charlie Christian, the Texan guitarist who truly electrified his instrument and turned it into a bona fide solo voice in a jazz context. Christian, too, favoured the more linear approach that you can hear vividly on the sides he made with Benny Goodman's sextet. For all his seminal influence, he only made a quarter of a century before a combination of TB and pneumonia carried him off. The great talent scout, John Hammond, described him as 'a sweet loving man with few defences against the world.' Anyway...

 

Alas, there is no live footage of CC, so we must give thanks to this invaluable glimpse of GG (Great Guitarist). Green almost racked up a half century, but hard drugs undermined his health and well-being and ultimately proved the death of him. Nevertheless, thanks to Blue Note, Green's legacy – for one who is so consistently underrated and sometimes even overlooked altogether – is staggering: not only are there over 30 albums as leader, sometimes in the context of an organ trio, sometimes thematic (as in the gospel-soaked Feelin' The Spirit or the lovely swinging The Latin Bit), and sometimes just plain brilliant (as in Idle Moments with vibraphonist, Bobby Hutcherson), but always melodic, rhythmic and easy on the ear; but there are also countless albums made as sideman – for organists like Jimmy Smith, 'Brother' Jack McDuff and 'Big' John Patton; for saxophonists like Lou Donaldson, Ike Quebec and Stanley Turrentine; for trumpeters like Lee Morgan and Donald Byrd; and so on.

You can hardly go wrong with an album that bears the name 'Grant Green' somewhere on the cover. Latterly, however, he turned more to funk – in keeping with what was happening in the world of jazz during the Miles-obsessed Seventies. He has been called the 'Father of Acid Jazz' and the long groove sessions offered sampling fodder to the more jazz-oriented hip-hop outfits like Us3 and A Tribe Called Quest. I pick up the albums if they're going cheap, but really they're fairly lame, even tedious affairs. He goes in for a lot of comping and his solos seem to lack that cutting edge synonymous with the prime of Mr. Grant Green.

His life was a little like this video, in fact: not perfect, but precious.