Search - Grant Green :: Grant Green Alive!

There Are Better...

M. Conklin | Illinois, USA | 07/21/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"grant green has a stellar discography, so it's rare when one of his releases misses a beat. alive! just doesn't have the typical quality of most of green's other releases though, and while it's not bad, this isn't one of green's sessions that needs to be searched out. recorded live in washington d.c. in late summer of 1970, green and his sextet focus on mostly modern to the day pop music covers. on many of the tracks, the group seems to have a hard time getting adjusted to each other. the music is sloppy. once they get it together though, and they always eventually do, the tunes catch a groove and you'll momentarily be reminded of how good green and his support could be. even still, the tunes are too long and you'll find yourself listening to the same riff over and over, in both the choruses and solos. what's more, the recording sound isn't up to snuff. at certain times, higher notes break away distorted and the guitar drowns out all of the other instruments, even when green is just backing up his musicians."

A period piece, but better than most.

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 07/31/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When I look at the vinyl ephemera (much of it courtesy of CTI records) in my collection from the 1970s, this is one of the few albums that I don't have slotted for the Salvation Army box. The tunes have the repetitive, caught-in-a-rut modal-rhythmic characteristics of material from this period, yet the solo work along with chord voicings and minimal changes provide much of redeeming value. The groove is occasionally monotonous but frequently hypnotic and, unlike so much recorded material from the era--even with acoustic instruments and straightahead swinging sounds--the bass isn't overamplified to the point of drowning out, or at least upstaging, the rest of the musical action during the session. "Time to Remember" is a tune that got to me to the point that I wrote several other melodies based on its chord progression (the truth can finally be told).



Although most of the good music of the seventies is "countercultural"--i.e. reactionary mainstream recordings (by Oscar, Basie, Pass, Zoot) on Pablo or by Bill Evans on Fantasy or Blakey and the Jazz Messengers on just about any European label (no domestic label would record him) or Clifford Jordan's transcendent "Glass Bead Games," "Grant Green Alive," while certainly no "Glass Bead Games," is an album not only reflective of its times but fairly enjoyable listening even today.



Still, of all the Green albums I've listened to, there's one standout. As good as the guitarist is on Mobley's "Workout" or on his own "Idle Moments" (that title track!) and "Grant Stand" (with Yusef Lateef at his plain tenor-talkin' best), the real sleeper among his sides, imo, is "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Not just the music but Van Gelder's capturing of the trio's sound (Larry Young's has got to be the least wearing Hammond B3 on record) adds up to a minor masterpiece, and a neglected one even by Green supporters (it's barely mentioned in the recent bio of Green, and rather disparagingly at that)."