“I always thought Grant Green was one of the greatest guitarists that ever existed since Charlie Christian,” Elvin Jones once said. “I haven’t seen anybody before or since that could compare to his artistry and conception of music.”

Ever since Charlie Christian plugged in his Gibson ES-150 so as to be heard amid the swinging din made by Benny Goodman’s band, the electric guitar has held a special place in jazz. From Wes Montgomery to George Benson to Pat Metheny, there have always been trailblazing stylists of the six-string, yet few geniuses of the guitar hide in plain sight like the broad-shouldered, green-suited Grant Green. With his trusty Gibson ES-330 in hand, Green defined the warm/cool sound of Blue Note sessions throughout the early 1960s and also exemplified that label’s pivot towards funk and soul by the early 1970s.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Green cut his teeth listening to his father’s Charlie Parker records and those Goodman sides with Christian on them, and began playing professionally in gospel groups at the ripe age of 13. When alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson pulled into St. Louis in the late 1950s, he heard what Green was doing on the bandstand and dug his deft blend of gospel, R&B, and bop, delivered via single line picking, rarely reverting to the full chord-comping of his contemporaries like Montgomery. Donaldson hired the 24-year old for his touring band and brought him up to New York City, where he soon caught the ear of Alfred Lion at Blue Note. 

Grant’s First Stand (1961)

From 1961 to 1963, no one played as many Blue Note dates as Green did. He cut 22 albums of his own (though only 14 would be issued at that time) and served as sessionman on over 50 other dates (worthy of a story all its own). In January of 1961, Green seemed to emerge fully-formed with “Grant’s First Stand”, which featured Green with another newcomer on the scene, Chicagoan organist Baby Face Willette. 

Green Street (1961)

Less than three months later, “Green Street” would appear next, Lion pairing him with a pair of dab hands in bassist Ben Tucker and drummer Dave Bailey. The two provide spare, supple support for Green’s style of play, delivering long fluid legato lines that drew together roadhouse blues and western swing, while nodding to bebop and gospel. Green’s read of Thelonious Monk’s standard “Round Midnight” moves as delectably slow as maple syrup in January.

Nigeria (1962/1980)

Green’s busy recording schedule led to a number of musical dialogues with some of Blue Note’s greatest talents, from slick organists like Willette and Larry Young to mentoring saxmen like Lou Donaldson and Stanley Turrentine to pianists Horace Parlan and Sonny Clark. With Clark, the two would make a string of indelible recordings, sadly not released in any of their lifetimes. On “Nigeria”, cut on January 13, 1962, Clark’s piano serves as perfect foil for Green, joyous on bop tempos, languorous and blue on the balladry. A year to the day of this recording date, Clark would be dead of an overdose.

Feelin’ the Spirit (1963)

Green’s work habits (and drug habit) began to wear on the country boy in the Big Apple. So when he digs into his gospel roots on “Feelin’ the Spirit”, he’s not just tapping into his childhood memories but also leaning on the faith to get through those arduous times. The album also highlights Green’s ear, enlisting a young Herbie Hancock not even five sessions deep into what would become a storied career.

Idle Moments (1965)

If you had to select just one Grant Green album for the uninitiated, it would have to be this one. Pianist Duke Pearson recalled Green’s “enchantment of his creative ingenuity” imparting “a feeling of complete relaxation and naturalness.” From its unhurried, inviting opening seconds, “Idle Moments” is unlike anything else in Grant Green’s discography. The after-midnight vibe of the title track is immaculate, a sublime 15-minute sprawl where the solos of Green, Pearson, Joe Henderson, and vibist Bobby Hutcherson uncurl and drift upwards like cigarette smoke in an ashtray. Its sustained atmosphere is a wondrous place to idle, one of the peaks of 1960s jazz, period.

But by the mid-1960s, the ground was swiftly shifting underfoot in jazz and Green kept an ear tuned to what was happening on the street. Out on the road, he played like an entertainer first and foremost, able to tap into whatever was blasting out of transistor radios around the country. (There’s stories of him being on tour, able to riff on whatever record was spinning on the jukebox like he was on the 45.) He wasn’t the first Blue Noter to catch Beatlemania, but “I Want to Hold Your Hand” shows Green as a populist, able to deliver breezy renditions of “Corcovado,” smooth takes on Cole Porter, and yes, even a soulful read on the Beatles. Having Larry Young and Elvin Jones in your rhythm section makes everything go smoother.

As that decade ended, jazz’s influence continued to wane as Motown and James Brown reigned supreme on the airwaves and in the popular imagination. But Green was right there, able to shift gears smoothly and get lowdown and funky. 1970s “Green is Beautiful” is case in point. To some jazz purists it was a sellout, but Green was just doing what he had always been doing: performing tunes that folks knew in their heart, delivering them in such a manner that got their feet moving. Which means hypnotic takes on James Brown’s “Ain’t It Funky Now” and yet another finger-licking take on the Beatles catalog, this time finding the soulful core tucked within “A Day in the Life.” 

“Visions” from 1971 would mark one of his last Blue Note dates and it finds Green tuning his radio dial into the pop fare of the day. Riding a crisp backbeat courtesy of Idris Muhammed, Green digs into the Carpenters’s “We’ve Only Just Begun,” the Jackson 5’s “Never Can Say Goodbye,” and Chicago’s “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” But lest you think Green has lost his touch, he then delivers a greasy read of Mozart’s “Symphony #40 In G Minor.” 

Green would leave Blue Note the next year and the last years of his life, he struggled with addiction and failing health, dying of cardiac arrest early in 1979. But as recent generations have discovered, his indelible touch on the guitar added a vibrant green hue to every Blue Note date.

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Andy Beta is the author of the forthcoming book, “Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane”. He is based in New York City.

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_{Header image: Grant Green, photo by Francis Wolff, courtesy of Blue Note Records}