Description
Grant Green – Green Is Beautiful – 180 Gram Vinyl Record32.99
A ten-minute interpretation of James Brown’s Ain’t It Funky Now announces the direction of Grant Green’s Green Is Beautiful. Recorded in January 1970, the album places the guitarist in a jazz-funk setting where a strong rhythmic foundation supports his sharply recognizable melodic voice. The opening performance gives the band ample time to work with a groove, establishing a different emphasis from Green’s earlier hard-bop sessions. His guitar remains the central thread, but organ, electric bass, drums and additional percussion give that voice a broader rhythmic environment. The record contains only five selections, with extended performances allowing each theme to become a substantial musical setting of its own.
The choice of repertoire reaches beyond one source of contemporary popular music. A Day in the Life brings a Beatles composition into the program, while I’ll Never Fall in Love Again draws on Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Those songs supply familiar melodies that can be heard in a different context once vocals are replaced by instrumental interpretation. Green’s guitar gives the themes a clear identity, and the surrounding ensemble opens up space for development beyond the proportions of the original songs. The variety helps define the album: a James Brown piece, a Beatles song and a Bacharach-David composition all become part of a jazz record with its own consistent rhythmic character.
Neal Creque contributes the two other compositions, The Windjammer and Dracula. He also plays organ on The Windjammer, with Emmanuel Riggins handling organ on the remaining tracks. The rest of the session includes Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Claude Bartee on tenor saxophone, Jimmy Lewis on electric bass, Idris Muhammad on drums, Candido Camero on congas and Richie Landrum on bongos. That lineup provides several layers of contrast around the guitar. The horn pair adds another melodic presence, the organ supplies sustained harmonic color, and the separate bass and percussion voices help give the grooves their detail. Green works within a full ensemble rather than a reduced guitar trio.
The album follows Carryin’ On, which had marked Green’s 1969 return to Blue Note and his movement toward a more pronounced funk influence. That context is useful when approaching Green Is Beautiful: the guitarist was extending his musical identity into a setting that reflected contemporary rhythm and blues. The two Creque pieces ensure that the program has material written from within the session’s own musical world, alongside the recognizable songs borrowed from elsewhere. Recorded at Van Gelder Studio and produced by Francis Wolff, the album documents this phase of Green’s work through a compact set of substantial performances. The emphasis on groove changes the surrounding framework while leaving the clarity of his guitar phrasing central to the music.
Side A pairs Ain’t It Funky Now and A Day in the Life with The Windjammer; Side B contains I’ll Never Fall in Love Again and Dracula. The program makes Green Is Beautiful an engaging choice for listeners interested in the meeting of jazz improvisation, pop songwriting and funk rhythm at the turn of the 1970s. Muhammad’s drums, Lewis’s electric bass and the additional percussion give the session a different foundation from many of Green’s early Blue Note dates. This stereo Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series edition presents the original five-track album on 180-gram vinyl. Kevin Gray mastered it all-analog from the original master tapes, and the record was pressed at Optimal.
Brand new, never played and still sealed in the factory plastic
Track Listing
A1. Ain’t It Funky Now
A2. A Day in the Life
A3. The Windjammer
B1. I’ll Never Fall in Love Again
B2. Dracula
