Guitarist Grant Green had two significant jazz careers. The first was as a Blue Note artist who recorded 29 straight-ahead jazz albums as a leader for the label between 1960 and 1972, plus a couple of dozen recording dates as a sideman. The other career was as a funky soul-jazz player who recorded important riff-driven albums for other labels starting in 1965 (His Majesty King Funk for Verve). The second career was, unfortunately, muted by the rapid rise of the jazz fusion movement, which had wider crossover appeal, especially with college-bound white rock fans. [Photo above of Grant Green in 1972, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art]
One album that bridged these two careers was his last for Blue Note—Live at the Lighthouse—a masterpiece on multiple levels. Recorded at the Lighthouse club in Hermosa Beach, Ca., in April 1972, the album featured Green (g), Claude Bartee (ss,ts), Gary Coleman (vib), Shelton Laster (org), Wilton Felder (el. b), Greg Williams (d) and Bobbye Porter Hall (perc). On the album, Green's band is on fire. It's impossible to overstate how together this funky soul-jazz septet was. It had a grabby groove and blistering soloists who could jam for long periods of time. Meaning they could keep audiences hypnotized with a handful of songs.
The album's songs were brilliantly chosen. The tracks are Neal Creque's Windjammer, the Stylistics' Betcha By Golly Wow, Donald Byrd's Fancy Free, Shelton Laster's Flood in Franklin Park, Mose Davis's Jan Jan and Johnny Bristol and Marilyn McLeod's Walk in the Night. Produced by George Butler, the record originally was a double album with tracks running upward of 15 minutes (Flood in Franklin Park).
The soul-jazz captured by this album existed for a very brief period of time, running roughly from 1969 to 1974. At the time, soul powerhouse artists such as Marvin Gaye, Isaac Hayes, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder and many others released exciting new albums on which they had greater control. Artists were finally able to abandon short-form, hook-heavy formulas used on AM radio and often replaced the gimmicks with socially conscious themes. With the 12-inch LP, they had room to experiment and expand, and the results were played extensively on emerging FM radio stations. Soul's popularity, especially with urban listeners, quickly rolled over to jazz musicians, since many of them were brought in as soul-album sidemen.
Prestige was the leader in the soul-jazz movement, but Blue Note wasn't far behind. Green understood how jazz could use hit soul recordings as an alternative to the American songbook, gaining currency with a wider, young-adult audience by creating instrumental interpretations. As you can hear on Live at the Lighthouse, Green had a wild thing going on without veering into avant-garde, fusion or free-form jazz. Instead, Green's approach burned and smoldered with Sly Stone funk and, in some respects, the material holds up better today than some of the major me-too fusion albums of yore. [Photo above of the Lighthouse in the early 1970s]
Green left Blue Note after his Lighthouse album. My guess is he wanted more artistic say and identified with the hipper soul movement than the jazz-rock scene, which had become loaded down with icy music-school sophistication and spiritual mysticism. I've always enjoyed Green's handful of 1970s albums, though others who favor his Blue Note period don't see or feel the value. There was a new energy and emotion in soul that suited him. After all, everything he wanted to say in the jazz vernacular had been said on the Blue Note sessions, many of which the label decided not to release until much later. Soul and funk were languages Grant Green understood from the start.
After spending a good chunk of 1978 in the hospital, Green went out on the road. In New York, following a gig at George Benson's Breezin' Lounge, he died of a heart attack in his car. Green was just 43.
JazzWax tracks: You'll find Grant Green: Live at the Lighthouse (Blue Note) here.
JazzWax clips: Here's the full album...
