Street of Dreams
Grant Green
Larry Young, Elvin Jones, Bobby Hutcherson
Engineer: Rudy Van Gelder
Blue Note Records (USA), 1998
1 CD
Catalogue #: 21290
EAN: 0724382129028
UPC: 724382129028
You save: 25%
Personnel: Grant Green (guitar); Bobby Hutcherson (vibraphone); Larry Young (organ); Elvin Jones (drums).
Producer: Alfred Lion.
Reissue producer: Michael Cuscuna.
Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on November 16, 1964. Originally released on Blue Note (84253). Includes liner notes by Leonard Feather.
Digitally remastered using 20-bit technology by Ron McMaster.
Next to the immensely popular IDLE MOMENTS, STREET OF DREAMS is quite possibly Grant Green's most significant Blue Note album. Returning from the earlier IDLE MOMENTS session is the always-intriguing Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone, an excellent match for Green's melodic guitar. Also reappearing from a previous session, the lesser-known TALKIN' ABOUT, are organ wonder Larry Young and the incomparable Elvin Jones on drums.
Although Green is the leader here, this is a quartet of masters, and the result is a magical session. Green's clean tone defines the foreground of the four selections on this set with Hutcherson's vibes providing a shimmering backdrop. Young and Jones, meanwhile, hold together a sonic tug-of-war that ebbs and flows like a rhythmic tide. Green is at his best on the opening "I Wish You Love" and the bouncing title track, with smartly conceived melodic statements and authoritative rhythmic precision. Hutcherson and Young also shine on concise solo spots of their own, following Green's lead with their own highly individual styles. Ultimately, though this is a brief session, it contains a wealth of masterful performances that typify the golden age of hard bop.
Tracklist
Grant Green
St. Louis-born guitarist Grant Green was a giant of what came to be known as soul-jazz. His singular style incorporated the influences of Gospel, blues, and R&B, and defined a unique post-bop language for electric guitar. His classic early-1960s Blue Note recordings are high-water marks of both the soul-jazz sound and of jazz guitar in general. Drug abuse sadly hampered his later career; he died in 1979, but his son, the jazz guitarist Grant Green, Jr., continues his legacy.
Elvin Jones
Many consider drummer Elvin Jones's contribution to the classic John Coltrane quartet of the 1960s nearly equal to that of the master. Jones's rolling polyrhythms balanced urgency and serenity to create a dynamic sense of texture and time, providing steady counterpoint to Coltrane's sonic explorations. Subsequently, Jones went on to collaborate with many distinguished peers and to pursue a long, fruitful solo career with his Jazz Machine. One of the key influences on jazz drumming in both bebop and post-bop, Jones continued playing, even in ill health, until his death in 2004 at the age of 76.
Bobby Hutcherson
Bobby Hutcherson is the premier jazz vibraphonist of his generation. The Los Angeles-born composer/musician came to prominence in the mid-'60s as part of the "New Thing" movement in jazz, the forward-looking link between bebop and free jazz. One of Hutcherson's most prominent early sessions was Eric Dolphy's epoch-making 1964 album OUT TO LUNCH. Shortly thereafter, Hutcherson's solo career began in earnest, showing him to be a prolific composer as well as a masterful and innovative improviser. In the '70s, Hutcherson moved into more commercial, R&B-influenced territory, but the '80s found him returning to his post-bop roots. By the '90s, a new crop of jazz vibes players had entered the spotlight, all of whom owed much to Hutcherson's influence, placing the still extremely active mallet master in the role of elder statesman.
