Sealed LP: Grant Green: The Main Attraction

$

25

Grant Green: The Main Attraction

FACTORY SEALED LP

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Songs

• Main Attraction
• Future Feature
• Creature

Credits

Andy Newmark: Drums

• Creed Taylor: Producer
• Mark Wilder: Digital Remastering
• Carlos Martin: Percussion
• Seth Rothstein: Project Director
• Howard Fritzson: Reissue Art Director
• Patti Matheny: A&R
• Stacey Boyle: Tape Research
• Kristin Kozusko: A&R
• Darren Salmieri: A&R
• Andy Newman: Drums
• Steven Berkowitz: A&R
• Sue Evans: Percussion
• Sam Burtis: Trombone
• Carlos Charles: Percussion, Conga
• Burt Collins: Trumpet
• Didier C. Deutsch: Liner Notes, Reissue Producer
• Joe Farrell: Sax (Tenor)
• Rudy Van Gelder: Engineer
• Will Lee: Bass
• Michael Brecker: Sax (Alto), Sax (Tenor)
• Ronnie Cuber: Sax (Baritone)
• Jon Faddis: Trumpet
• Grant Green: Guitar, Main Performer
• Don Grolnick: Clavichord, Piano (Electric), Clavinet
• Steve Khan: Guitar, Guitar (Rhythm)
• Hubert Laws: Flute

Album Review

Typically, Grant Green's final album as a leader gets a bum rap. While it's true that this isn't one of Green's best records, it's not by any means his worst. The band here is large, and the set concentrates on groove rather than guitar flashiness. But what the hell did Green have left to prove? The Main Attraction was produced by Creed Taylor and conducted and arranged by David Matthews. This set includes only three tracks: the nearly 2-minute title track and a pair of other Matthews cuts, "Future Feature" and "Creature." Oh yeah, you get it, the movie themes. Well, don't let the cheesy cover and dumb cut titles keep you from enjoying this solid groover. Green is supported by guitarist Steve Khan, Don Grolnick on keyboards, Hubert Laws on flute, Joe Farrell and Michael Brecker on saxophones, Jon Faddis and Burt Collins on trumpets, drummer Andy Newman, and bassist Will Lee, just to name a few of the players on this slab. While it's also true that these jams sound a bit dated with the phase shifters on the rhythm guitars, it doesn't hurt the punchy, funky soul-jazz riffing any. The title track is the strongest, featuring smoking solos by Green and Laws, and glorious fills by Grolnick. It's so long that it becomes hypnotic to the point that you'll think you're still hearing it well into "Future Feature," the last cut. "Creature," with Grolnick's impressionistic and heavily reverbed electric piano (à la "500 Hundred Miles High"), is a slinky, slow-moving blues tune that slips and slithers around a pair of keyboard figures and Laws' flute before Green reaches in and claims the show. Again, this is solid and greasy soul for another ten-and-a-half minutes. Contrary to jazz critics' opinions, Green had nothing to be ashamed of on Main Attraction. If funky '70s soul-jazz is your thing, you won't go wrong with this one. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

Biography

Grant Green biography by Michael Erlewine and Ron Wynn, All Music Guide

Grant Green was born in St. Louis on June 6, 1931, learned his instrument in grade school from his guitar-playing father and was playing professionally by the age of thirteen with a gospel group. He worked gigs in his home town and in East St. Louis, IL, until he moved to New York in 1960 at the suggestion of Lou Donaldson. Green told Dan Morgenstern in a Down Beat interview: "The first thing I learned to play was boogie-woogie. Then I had to do a lot of rock & roll. It's all blues, anyhow."

His extensive foundation in R&B combined with a mastery of bebop and simplicity that put expressiveness ahead of technical expertise. Green was a superb blues interpreter, and his later material was predominantly blues and R&B, though he was also a wondrous ballad and standards soloist. He was a particular admirer of Charlie Parker, and his phrasing often reflected it. Green played in the '50s with Jimmy Forrest, Harry Edison, and Lou Donaldson.

He also collaborated with many organists, among them Brother Jack McDuff, Sam Lazar, Baby Face Willette, Gloria Coleman, Big John Patton, and Larry Young. During the early '60s, both his fluid, tasteful playing in organ/guitar/drum combos and his other dates for Blue Note established Green as a star, though he seldom got the critical respect given other players. He was off the scene for a bit in the mid-'60s, but came back strong in the late '60s and '70s. Green played with Stanley Turrentine, Dave Bailey, Yusef Lateef, Joe Henderson, Hank Mobley, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Elvin Jones.

• Sadly, drug problems interrupted his career in the '60s, and undoubtedly contributed to the illness he suffered in the late '70s. Green was hospitalized in 1978 and died a year later. Despite some rather uneven LPs near the end of his career, the great body of his work represents marvelous soul-jazz, bebop, and blues.
• A severely underrated player during his lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz guitar. Like Stanley Turrentine, he tends to be left out of the books. Although he mentions Charlie Christian and Jimmy Raney as influences, Green always claimed he listened to horn players (Charlie Parker and Miles Davis) and not other guitar players, and it shows. No other player has this kind of single-note linearity (he avoids chordal playing). There is very little of the intellectual element in Green's playing, and his technique is always at the service of his music. And it is music, plain and simple, that makes Green unique.
• Green's playing is immediately recognizable -- perhaps more than any other guitarist. Green has been almost systematically ignored by jazz buffs with a bent to the cool side, and he has only recently begun to be appreciated for his incredible musicality. Perhaps no guitarist has ever handled standards and ballads with the brilliance of Grant Green. Mosaic, the nation's premier jazz reissue label, issued a wonderful collection The Complete Blue Note Recordings with Sonny Clark, featuring prime early '60s Green albums plus unissued tracks. Some of the finest examples of Green's work can be found there.

• This record came from a record store called "Phantasmagoria" which was located in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Phantasmagoria went out of business in 1978. I purchased most of their unsold inventory some years later when I owned "Music Madness" - a new & used record store in Catasauqua.
• Phantasmagoria used round colored stickers to indicate the price of the albums. They had a sign on the wall with the color sticker combinations for the customers to use so they knew the price of the albums. Most of the albums still have these stickers on them, and in some rare cases, the stickers are written on. Some of the records have prices on them. This is the price you would have paid for the record in 1978 if you would have bought it at Phantasmagoria. Please don't confuse these prices with their current value.
• All sealed albums are being sold as collector's items and cannot be returned due to manufacturer's defects. It may be almost impossible to replace many of the sealed albums that I am selling.

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• All album reviews, credits and artist biographies are from AllMusic Guide. If you haven't been to their web site, you have to check it out. It's one of the most comprehensive music references on the internet. In some cases, credits may include reissue (CD) information. Obviously any credits referenced to CDs do not apply to this album release.

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