Category: Jazz
“Into the Night” with the Jazz Guitar of Grant Green with Organ!
This morning when I opened MOG the first album that caught my eye was a Grant Green album entitled Organ Trio & Quartet. Now I have occasionally listen to the fine guitar of Grant Green, but I don’t ever remember him being associated with an organ trio. So with visions of Jimmy Smith and wes Montgomery dancing in my head I put it on and I was impressed the group was tight and the organ was really smoking. It seemed that through the early tracks of the album the organ was either equal to or more prominent than the guitar of Green. At lunchtime I looked up information about the album and found that it was actually a combination of two albums. The first half of the album was actually the début album of organist Sam Lazar, Space Flightreleased in 1960. Grant Green was a sideman on that album. It was Green’s second recording. The second half of the album came from a Grant Green album, Iron City, recorded in 1967 and released in 1972. The organ player on this album is listed as “Big John” Patton. When I found the video that will close this post, I read some of the comments,. Included in the comments was a discussion as to whether the organist was actually Big John or someone else possibly Larry Johnson. Since I could not tell you the difference I will bow to their experience and say the player may not be “Big John” Patton! So here’s the track, it’s actually the title track “Iron City”. What do you think?? John Patton or Larry Johnson either way Grant Green is still terrific!
“Into the Night” – with the Jazz organ of Dr Lonnie Smith!
So I think that through the years I’ve heard of organist Lonnie Smith or Dr Lonnie Smith as he is known now, but until today I’ve never listened to his music. Big mistake! The album Too Damn Hot came up on my “Just for You” on MOG and I saw the organ and said that’s good for me and it was great! Smith’s career has spanned over 50 years and he’s played with a Who’s Who of greats in jazz, he started with the George Benson Quartet and then more on to a solo career. From his website:
Dr Lonnie Smith – The Best Jazz Organist?
Dr Lonnie Smith – Organ, Hammond B3 – Born July 3, 1942
Through the years I’ve heard of organist Lonnie Smith or Dr Lonnie Smith as he is known now, but until today I’ve never listened to his music. Big mistake! The album Too Damn Hot came up on my “Just for You” on MOG and I saw the organ and said that’s good for me and it was great! Smith’s career has spanned over 50 years and he’s played with a Who’s Who of greats in jazz, he started with the George Benson Quartet and then more on to a solo career. From his website:
New Jazz From Old Friends from the Princeton Record Exchange
So I took the day off from work yesterday because I didn’t have anything to do, but my wife had something in mind, and she knew just how to get me to go look for dead people! I guess I should tell you first that looking for dead people, is in fact, just going to the NJ State Archives and looking up birth, death and marriage certificates, but I think looking for dead people sounds more interesting! So how did she do it, well, all she really had to do was remind me that I still had gift certificates to the Princeton Record Exchange from Christmas with lots of money left on them! So it was only moments after we decided that I would go, that she was working on the LIST of dead people. Actually, it wasn’t a very long or very hard list and I was able to find most of the certificates within two hours. I didn’t find out until later that I screwed up one of the most important ones . I was looking for the death certificate of a William S, Horner and I found it, but I didn’t have a microfilm machine that printed so I had to take the film to the staff machine to make the copy. When I did I mistakenly copied William F Horner instead of William S! So Brian I apologize and i anybody needs a death certificate for a William F Horner who died in 1939 in NJ, I have it! Now on to the good stuff… I found 10 CDs five of them jazz, four Americana and one rock. I won’t bore you with all ten at once, rather, I’ll split it over two posts. So here’s the jazz ones first:
A Jazz Odyssey – Oscar Peterson – the album is a compilation CD put out with his autobiography and offers an overview of his career from 1950-1970. A good CD for work!
Today in Music – Wes Montgomery’s Birthday – really!
Today In Music – Ron Carter’s Birthday – Not!
So my usual routine in the morning consists of reviewing several this day in history and music sites. Then I think about the events, birthday, etc, that catch my eye and decide while exercising and taking my shower what to write about and how the music may tie into my musical library. Today two things caught my eye. The first was the birthday of Ron Carter the jazz bassist and the second was that on today’s date the first Grammys were awarded! So as I thought about Ron Carte I thought about how he was the bass player on probably over half of the jazz albums that are in my collection. So I decided I would go with today being his birthday…… then I came down to write the post and I discovered that, in fact, today is NOT Ron Carter’s birthday rather his 76th birthday will be celebrated on May 4th. So I thought ok, I’ll go with the first Grammys. Then I read this:
Morning Music – Ben Sidran does Dylan Different!
Ok so last night I was looking at the Roots Music Report Jazz charts and there at number 2 was a new album from Ben Sidran. Now, I knew Ben Sidran way back in the early 70s when he was a member of the Steve Miller Band. From allmusic:
February 17, 1982 – Thelonious Monk joins heaven’s jazz band.
Yesterday marked the 31st anniversary of the death of one of the greats of jazz, On that date Thelonious Monk died of a stroke, at the age of 64. I really didn’t get into Monk’s music until the last few years. I do have one album Monk Plays Duke on vinyl, but I have Brilliant Corners and Alone in San Francisco on the iPod! I had the album Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall on an mp3 player as a download from Rhapsody, now that’s one great album. (Note to self get that album on the iPod!).
Anyway here’s some background on Monk from Wikipedia:
