GRANTSTAND is good, right? (Grant Green)

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

k i got a 70s rvg stereo-stamped copy, i was all feeling guilty buying something i was unsure about, its such an oddball session: you have two players not usu. asso. w/ blue note: yusef lateef, and jack mcfuff (who later became a bn artist in his own right).  anyone know the story of this album??  its going to be way different from a vick/bjp/ben dixon album or something like that, i think.  

[robertoart]

I find it hard to believe you've never luxuriated in the Grandstand album before Chewy. But wasn't Grant in (or just out of the Mcduff band) around this time. They'd also just worked on some Prestige sessions together. The Yusef connection I have know idea about, but also interestingly, they use Al Harewood instead of Joe Dukes, which is another difference too. 

Edited March 8, 2016 by robertoart

[JSngry]

Yusef is SO right, good!

[Homefromtheforest]

Great album but I don't find it to be one of the better sounding Blue Note sessions.  Something about the recording seems off to me...

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

im exited about it now, thanks- yea this one always escaped me

[Gheorghe]

many years ago it seemed I had a lot of money to spend on records and somehow I collected most of the BN stuff. Naturally I got so many Grant Green albums I don´t remember exaxtly which is which, usually if I feel it´s time for some Grant Green it always remain´s Idle Moments that will be spinned.....

Is Grandstand the one with that blues "from Maude´s flat" or something like that ?

Yeah, really nice, but as you told, something with the recording sound seems to be strange. I don´t hear very well due to age and my fondness for really powerful drummers, but something sounds like if it got a defect. I thought it´s the later RVG reissues, sometimes they don´t sound good, but who knows.......

[Guy Berger]

It's a very good album.

[mjzee]

I think all early-to-mid-60's BN GG albums are worthwhile, but I confess that Grantstand never really connected with me.  Can't tell you why.  

[JSngry]

It's an album that I love more for the playing than for the tunes. The tunes could be stronger. But as far as the individual playing, hey, that's all good with me.

Keeping that in mind, it doesn't really sound like the album "belongs" to anybody, not even Grant. You never had that to worry about with either Yusef of McDuff, they always framed their stuff brightly, shiningly, and distinctively. But this is not a Yusef Lateef record or a Jack McDuff record, it's a Grant Green record. Maybe Duke Pearson's (increased?)  involvement would have shored that up, but what, you gonna have Duke Pearson arrange an album with Jack McDuff and Yusef Lateef on board? So the flaws I find are in that regard, there's really nothing there to present it as a "Grant Green Record" except for the labeling.

But good god, Yusef on "Blues For Maude's Flat", that's the solo that really grabbed me onto Yusef, the total control of the sound of the tenor, deep, deep stuff. But every body plays well, and that's a real one-off combination, so there's plenty of fun to be had from that by itself.

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

its definitely like a blue note """one-off""

by that time Yusef was like completely into his own special music, so that he did this organ date like this, is suprising

[danasgoodstuff]

No more surprising than Sam
Rivers doing an organ date

or an album of standards

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

mcduff was big prestige guy at that time, lateef, also on prestige

Edited March 9, 2016 by chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez

[chewy-chew-chew-bean-benitez]

---come to think of it, take side 2 for example, dont listen to it, just look at it.....huge track 1 band and a little trk 2 closer.  very prestige-y.  they really prestige'd up this blue note.  

[CJ Shearn]

Great album, loved it for years since I bought the RVG nearly 12 or 13 years or so ago back in college.  Think "Blues  in Maude's Flat" is one of the all time great BN blues.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I like the album and yes, 'Blues in Maude's flat' is one of the great blues cuts - I wonder who invented the title? I've always thought of it as Alfred Lion's attempt (or Duke Pearson's attempt) at Esmond Edwards, so Chewy and I are onside there.

I never thought, until reading this, that it's not truly a Grant Green album, but I've got to agree with Jim, it's more like Mel Rhyne's 'Organizing' than anything else. Sort of get a bunch of guys in and press play. The kind of thing Bobby Weinstock used to love to do before Esmond came on the scene. In that sense it's like the Gene Ammons jam sessions, also not really Gene Ammons albums, as per 'Tenor sax favourites' (particularly vols 2 & 3) or as we'd come to know and love them after his first spell in prison.

MG

[robertoart]

Grandstand is the first one without Baby Face Willette. First Grant Green Blue Note organ session without him I mean. 

[Chuck Nessa]

43 minutes ago, robertoart said:

Grandstand is the first one without Baby Face Willette. First Grant Green Blue Note organ session without him I mean. 

It is the 2nd GG BN leader date with organ.

[robertoart]

Yes I know, but the initial flurry of sessions included Here Tis, Grants First Stand and the two Baby Face  Willette's. I'm not sure if Grantstand came before or after the Last Willette leader date, but it must have been around the same time? He didn't do anymore Organ dates after that till he hooked up with Big John Patton in 62/63 I think. 

Edited March 11, 2016 by robertoart

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

'Grantstand' was recorded on 1 Aug 1961; 'Stop & listen' on 22 May 1961.

Here's an old Grant Green discography which no longer has a web page but which I saved years ago. It's pretty good, but doesn't include his 1956 session, which has never issued.

(Now, how do I do this?...)

Hm, seems to work... nice.

MG

Grant Green a discography.htm

[bertrand]

Tell me more about the 1956 session?

[Dan Gould]

IIRC the earliest session was a Vee Jay date with an R&B band.

[paul secor]

Grantstand is one of my favorite Grant Green BNs, not only for the quality of the playing but also because the record has a looser club date flow to it, unlike the usual BN "rehearsed" quality - a good change of pace.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Tommy Dean, with whom GG made his first recordings, didn't run an R&B band. He was a jazz pianist who turned to organ. His organ style appears to have been an influence on Sam Lazar - in the mid fifties, Dean's was one of the main combos in St Louis. It wasn't unlike that of Bill Doggett's but whereas Doggett's band swaggered at a plodding pace, Dean's band flew! That's why those GG cuts seem very interesting. Some of his 1954 and 1955 recordings had Oliver Nelson on them. Gene Easton was on his earliest session, from '49.

Here's what I know of the 1956 session:

Tommy Dean

  Tommy Dean (org); Fred Lee (ts); Grant Green (eg); Hattuch Alexander (b);

  Milton Wilson (d, bgo); Joe Buckner (voc).

Universal Recording, Chicago, October 23, 1956

 

56-562 Boogie Googie (part 1) Vee-Jay unissued

56-563 Boogie Googie (part 2)

56-564 Ain't No Justice

56-565 She Left Me Alone

56-566 Come On

 

I dare say, this Vee-Jay session will never come to light, as it hasn't already. Michael Cuscuna must have had a good riffle around in their tape store and would surely have rescued it, were it there to be rescued.

 

MG

[Dan Gould]

Well at least I got the Vee Jay part right. What makes you think that Michael has had a chance at searching for it? I believe the Vee Jay tapes belong to a British firm now?

They've definitely ignored what is in there as I've never seen the Baby Face Willette 45 show up on any Vee Jay comp. You'd think they'd have put it out after Baby Face got a nice boost in stature during the BN reissue boom.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

You've got a point there, Dan. The Moses Davis single has never been reissued, either, and you'd have thought that the cover of his tune 'Jan Jan' by Grant Green and others would have sparked that. In fact, The Counts first LP, on Cotillion, with the original version of 'Jan Jan', has never made it onto CD, and that's their best album. So, someone else can go figure...

MG