Customer Reviews

Solid

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Grant Green recorded a mountain of discs for Blue Note in the 1960s; so many that quite a few were left in the can till after his premature death in 1979. As it turns out quite a lot of the unreleased discs count among his best work. In 1964 he twice recorded with a rhythm section of McCoy Tyner, Bob Cranshaw & Elvin Jones; the May session yielded _Matador_, & the June session, on which Joe Henderson and James Spaulding were added, yielded _Solid_. It's a good session, probably the most hard-hitting Green ever recorded, with a typically catholic choice of material by Duke Pearson, George Russell (the very long reading of "Ezz-Thetic"), Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson ("The Kicker", recorded before the famous Horace Silver version), Burt Bacharach ("Wives and Lovers", included as a bonus track but left off the original vinyl), & one Green composition. As with a lot of Green discs, the leader doesn't in fact occupy a more prominent position than any of the other players, especially as Green leaves comping duties to Tyner. -- It's rather intriguing, incidentally, how much Green followed not just Coltrane's influence but also Sonny Rollins. Countless Green discs include readings of Rollins tunes or Rollins-associated tunes (e.g. "I'm an Old Cowhand" on _Talking 'Bout_, "Airegin" & "Oleo" on the sessions with Sonny Clark)--Rollins' 1954 blues "Solid" is sufficiently basic that one wonders why Green didn't just write his own line & get a little extra cash for a composer credit.

A very good disc--not, perhaps, quite Green's best (_Idle Moments_ & the Sonny Clark set would be the first ports of call for a listener new to Green) but certainly a worthwhile album.

This cd and "Matador" are two of Grant Green's best cd's. Both were recorded with Coltrane's rhythm section, and both are classics. "Matador" and "Solid" are to Grant Green as "Live at the Half Note" and "Full House" are to Wes Montgomery. Really inspired playing by all.

Harder edged than most Grant Green albums. Green is pushed to new heights thanks to an amazing support cast. Everyone involved simply burns. The ensemble plaing and soloing on George Russell's "Ezz-thetic" is mind blowing. Great tunes, great playing, too bad the remastered CD edition seems to be dissapearing fast. Get it if you can!

More great music from the early to mid-60's Blue Note vaults. I picked a copy on vinyl some years back, and it has remained a personal favorite. (Unfortunately, I no longer have a turntable.) In particular, check out Elvin Jones' work on "Grant's Tune" and McCoy Tyner's solo on the title track. I'm certain there are many jazz fans out there who would love to see these recordings reissued on CD.

Granted, I only own Idle Moments and Street Of Dreams, but this album takes the cake. Idle and Dreams is pretty mellow in content overall. I was pretty sure both of those would be prety good CD's to check out first seeing as how the lineup on them both was pretty nice, yet when I stuck it in my player, I just wasn't feeling it.

Being mostly into the hardbop sounds ala Jazz Messengers and such, of course those albums wouldn't appeal to me. Not exactly what I strive to hear in jazz music. I like the uptempo wildout stuff.

Someone else wrote a review saying it was a lil "hard edged", and I'd agree. For Green's early recordings I've heard so far, it is a lil "hard edged", but you can't deny that even with the lineup he had on this recording (Henderson, Tyner, Elvin) - it is a bit tame in comparison to thier efforts with other leaders during the same time period.

If you are currently discovering jazz like I am and are interested in hearing Grant Green, this would be the first place I'd start. Fantastic flow, not overly energetic or avant-garde and keeps a sweet pace from start to finish.

I would probally hit Lee Morgan's "Search For New Land" as well, considering it has what I believe to be possibly the most stellar of all lineups ever put together by Blue Note (ie - Grant Green, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Reginald Workman & Billy Higgins).

Peace to all those discovering jazz and props to all those older, wiser heads who were listening and supporting real jazz music since day dot.



ATTN : AUDIOPHILES - Just in case you were wondering about the audio quality contained in the recording, here's the skinny. Sounds like it wasn't remastered at all. I pulled a waveform into a Sony Sound Forge 7.0 (a professional sound editing program)) to take a good look at a waveform produced from the CD. The waveform comes up to about 4.1 from inf, which is pretty crap in my opinion. I know how limiting messes everything up, but the least they couldve done was give this recording a good normalization using peak level to minimize distortion while making the recording that much louder. It could probally go up another 3db easily without distorting or losing integrity.

Another probalem this CD has is the amount of tape noise heard frequently throughout the recording. I'm tellin you right now, theres a TON of it all over the place. Not one track plays through without 2 or 3 "crunches" heard throughout the song.

I'm prety sure they just did a direct from tape to digital copy and did nothing else. I must admit though, the EQ's sound so lushiously creamy that it makes you jealous about how amazing Mr. Van Gelder really was.

Let's hope and pray Rudy gets his hands on this tape and fixes it up real nice before he kicks the can. This album should be without a doubt included in the RVG series. The only reason I think that it might not be is because the tape is without question damaged fairly badly and he might not be able to work around it.

the Band is top Notch&Grant Green is Smoking&Grooving.the Arrangements&Instrumentation are smoking.props to Blue Note Records for letting this Jam out of the Vault.Really Good Disc.