Grant Green: The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark – 1961-62

Imagine if someone discovered a stash of unreleased Beatles records 15 years after they broke up. Then imagine Apple Records released all that music in a 2-CD set.

That’s what Grant Green: The Complete Quartets with Sonny Clark is like.

I exaggerate, but not by much. Grant Green wasn’t the Beatles of jazz. But for about five years in the early- to mid-1960s, he was arguably the best jazz guitarist around. He was in the same class as Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrell, though not as widely recognized.

And Green was outrageously prolific. From 1961 to 1966, he recorded a ridiculous 20 albums as a leader. He also played as a sideman on 14 more Blue Note albums – in 1963 alone! Forget Art Blakey and Horace Silver. Grant Green might just be the most-recorded artist in Blue Note’s history – and also the most unsung.

In his prime, Green released some pretty fantastic records: Grant’s First Stand in 1961, Grantstand in 1962, The Latin Bit in 1963, Am I Blue in 1964 and my personal favorite, Idle Moments in 1965. If he recorded nothing else, those records alone would place him among the greats of modern jazz guitar.

Trouble is, Green recorded so many sessions, Blue Note couldn’t keep up, so lots of terrific recordings sat in the vault. Then Green went in a different direction in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, becoming more commercial and less interesting. Finally, he died in 1979.

But a funny thing happened after Green’s death. Blue Note realized it was sitting on a treasure trove of great unreleased records. And so, in 1979 and 1980, the label put out three outstanding Grant Green records that were made in 1961 and 1962: Nigeria, Gooden’s Corner and Oleo. All three feature Green’s crystal-clear guitar and Sonny Clark’s magnificent piano.

Today, all three records are available on the 2-CD Complete Quartets set. If you love bop generally or jazz guitar specifically, you must own this.

With no other soloists to distract the listener, the 19 tracks are pure piano-and-guitar nirvana. Grant plays his trademarked single-note runs, light and tasteful, always sweet. Clark’s piano is the very definition of hard bop swing.

The collection runs the gamut from wistful ballads to hard rocking blues. My favorite track? “It Ain’t Necessarily So” turns the George Gershwin chestnut inside out. Green never even states the melody directly. From the get-go, he’s reinventing the familiar tune. Green and Clark turn the old, overly familiar melody into a down-and-dirty blues workout. And it works – for 10 inspired minutes, including a couple of unexpected but delightful quotes of Dizzy Gillespie’s “Birk’s Works” on piano.

Another favorite: the wistful, languid “Nancy (With the Laughing Face).” The Frank Sinatra vocal version always struck me as sappy. But in the hands of this modest jazz quartet, it is a sad tear-jerker with a beautiful melody.

There’s more to Complete Quarters, of course – mostly inventive takes on standards by Sonny Rollins, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Sammy Cahn and more. Even Henry Mancini’s trite “Moon River” gets a nice re-interpretation.

While The Complete Quartets may not be the all-time best Grant Green, it’s a remarkable find and a worthy addition to any jazz collection.

Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Easy to get, but not a cheapo

Cost: $10 used, $17 new

Baby Face Willette: Stop and Listen – 1961

In the beginning, there was Jimmy Smith – the first, best and undisputed champion of the jazz organ. Before Smith, there was nothing. After, the jazz organ was a real thing, arguably the most important instrument in the 1960s soul-jazz universe.

Many great jazz organists followed, including Jack McDuff, Jimmy McGriff and Shirley Scott. But one of my favorites is also one of the least recognized: Baby Face Willette.

Baby Face – Roosevelt to his mother – had one of the best years of any jazz figure in 1961. That’s the year he released his first album (Face to Face) and second album (Stop and Listen), and played on Lou Donaldson’s Here ‘Tis and on Grant Green’s Grant’s First Stand.

All four records are Blue Note classics. All four feature Willette’s bluesy Hammond B-3 and Green’s laid-back guitar. All four deserve a prominent place in your record collection – but Stop and Listen may be my favorite.

Why? Here ‘Tis and Face to Face feature horns with the traditional organ-guitar-drums trio. Nothing wrong with that. Both are fabulous listens. But to my ears, an organ trio is the best place to appreciate both the organ and the guitar – undiluted and all alone in the spotlight.

Stop and Listen is a wonderful mix of slow blues, toe-tapping bop and even proto-rock. For my money, the title tune is the highlight. Though only 4 minutes, it’s a fabulous up-tempo blues with a catchy theme, a gospel-ish sound and nimble solos. Grant Green has never sounded better, with his compact single-note runs. And Willette establishes his own bluesy voice that owes a debt to Jimmy Smith, but is it very own thing.

“Jumpin’ Jupiter” is, as the name implies, a fast-paced romp that could almost be an early rock tune. The opening track is a more soulful version of the classic “Willow Weep for Me” than I’ve ever heard.  And Willette’s original “Chances are Few” is a slow, draggy blues that wrings out pleasure and pain from every long-held note.

It’s true that Jimmy Smith created the jazz organ and produced some of the best soul-jazz albums ever. But his disciples took Smith’s ideas and expanded them. Baby Face Willette – despite a criminally short career – found a soulmate in Grant Green and crafted two of the best Blue Note records in that genre. Stop and Listen ranks up there with the best of them all.

Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Easy to find

Cost: $3 to $5 used

Louis Smith: Here Comes Louis Smith – 1957

I’m not a musical snob. I’m not a guy to drop obscure musical names to impress friends and hipsters. But when I come across a name that is undeservedly obscure, I don’t mind shouting it out the window.

So here’s my shout for today: Louis Smith!

Chances are you’ve never heard of Louis Smith. You should. He put out exactly two albums as a Blue Note bandleader, in 1957 and 1958, then disappeared for the next 20 years. Here Comes Louis Smith is his debut, followed a year later by Smithville. Both are classics of hard bop – or should be.

Like that other trumpet-playing Louis – the polar opposite of obscure – Smith had a strong, confident tone. Listen to the first 40 seconds of the first song on his debut album: “Tribute to Brownie” – a shout-out to trumpet legend Clifford Brown, who died a year earlier.

Backed only by drummer Art Taylor, Smith’s trumpet emits a powerful blast of almost-unaccompanied bop. Saxman Cannonball Adderley (playing under the weird pseudonym Buckshot La Funke) leaps in and the two horns play a catchy theme. Adderley plays his best Bird-like solo, Smith follows with a solo that’s equal parts Brown and Fats Navarro. Duke Jordan contributes a sprightly, toe-tapping piano solo and the whole thing wraps up in 7 joyful minutes.

It’s a fantastic introduction to a fantastically underappreciated talent. Five more songs follow: a smoldering blues (“Brill’s Blues’), an incendiary bebop original by Smith that could have been ripped from the Bird-and-Diz canon (“Ande”), a languid “Stardust,” a mid-tempo original bopper (“South Side”) and finally a scorchingly fast, misleadingly titled original called “Val’s Blues.” Blue it may be, but the tempo is a hard gallop and Smith is flawless.

To steal a phrase from Marlon Brando, Louis Smith coulda been a contender. He was every bit as good as any trumpeter in the 1950s Blue Note stable. Instead, after just two records, he went back to teaching and did not re-emerge until the 1970s, and then only for two more records. He recorded a few more in the ‘90s and died in 2016.

The world is full of could-have-beens. In the jazz universe of the 1950s, Louis Smith is very near the top of my woulda-coulda-shoulda list. We’ll never know what gems we missed because Smith chose the classroom over the studio, but at least we have two certifiable diamonds. Here Comes Louis Smith is his masterful introduction.

Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

Availability: Easy to find (isn’t everything on the Internet?), but not cheap

Cost: $12 to $20, used or new