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Grant Green


Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was a jazz guitarist and composer.
Recording prolifically and mainly for Blue Note Records as both leader and sideman, Green performed in the hard bop, soul jazz, bebop, and Latin-tinged idioms throughout his career.
Critics Michael Erlewine and Ron Wynn write, "A severely underrated player during his lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz guitar ... Green's playing is immediately recognizable – perhaps more than any other guitarist." Critic Dave Hunter described his sound as "lithe, loose, slightly bluesy and righteously groovy".
 He often performed in an organ trio, a small group with an organ and drummer.
Apart from guitarist Charlie Christian, Green's primary influences were saxophonists, particularly Charlie Parker, and his approach was therefore almost exclusively linear rather than chordal. He thus rarely played rhythm guitar except as a sideman on albums led by other musicians.
The simplicity and immediacy of Green's playing, which tended to avoid chromaticism, derived from his early work playing rhythm and blues and, although at his best he achieved a synthesis of this style with bop, he was essentially a blues guitarist and returned almost exclusively to this style in his later career
Lou Donaldson discovered him playing in a bar in St. Louis. After touring together with Donaldson, Green arrived in New York around 1959–60.
Lou Donaldson introduced Green to Alfred Lion of Blue Note Records. Lion was so impressed that, rather than testing Green as a sideman, as was the usual Blue Note practice, Lion arranged for him to record as a group leader first. However, due to Green's lack of confidence the initial recording session was only released in 2001 as First Session.
Despite the shelving of his first session, Green's recording relationship with Blue Note was to last, with a few exceptions, throughout the 1960s. From 1961 to 1965, Green made more appearances on Blue Note LPs, as leader or sideman, than anyone else. Green's first issued album as a leader was Grant's First Stand. This was followed in the same year by Green Street and Grantstand. Grant was named best new star in the Down Beat critics' poll, in 1962. He often provided support to the other important musicians on Blue Note, including saxophonists Hank Mobley, Ike Quebec, Stanley Turrentine and organist Larry Young.
Green spent much of 1978 in the hospital and, against the advice of doctors, went back on the road to earn money. While in New York to play an engagement at George Benson's Breezin' Lounge, he collapsed in his car of a heart attack and died on January 31, 1979.