Rubber City Review

We’ve covered guitarist Robert Quine pretty well in this blog, especially here and here. But I had to throw this post together after my sister came across a long-lost article in the bottom of a box at her house in Akron, just a block from where Rob grew up. I think she got it from Rob’s mom, Rosalie, who did a fine job of chronicling her son’s career, starting with the trailblazing NYC punk band Richard Hell and the Voidoids back in the mid-70s, then with Lou Reed, then on to a whole slew of guest appearances – from Lydia Lunch and Marianne Faithfull to Tom Waits and Matthew Sweet.

The article, titled “Run – Don’t Walk,” was written by rock journalist and musician Rick Batey (author of “The American Blues Guitar: An Illustrated History”… you can buy a copy below) and appears to be from a UK music magazine, probably Melody Maker. I couldn’t find any evidence of it online, even over at the uber-research site rocksbackpages.com, which lists 32 articles about Rob. I’ve dated it from 1990, since Batey references “a 47-year-old ex-lawyer” and Rob was born on December 30, 1942. Rob seems especially wound up and expansive during the interview, which really nails his skewed wit and musical wisdom (in writing my posts, I was disadvantaged by not having tape running during my conversations with Rob). He talks at length about influences, his approach to playing, the state of rock at the time, and even his favorite gear. And he betrays a deep appreciation of rock’s roots, which might seem surprising given the shrieking, often atonal solos that defined his playing with the Voidoids. As Rob liked to point out, “by many people’s standards, my playing is very primitive but by punk standards, I’m a virtuoso.”

Before I share some excerpts (with music samples for those of you who want to play along), I’ll offer this in the way of “full disclosure”… Rob is my second cousin, which makes him second cousin once removed from Daniel Quine Auerbach of The Black Keys (which explains the “DQA” on Dan’s guitar strap). Needless to say, Rob was a big influence on Dan, who regrets not having the opportunity to play and record with him (Rob died in 2004 from a heroin overdose).

Rob on Influences:

• I’ll buy almost any European reissue of totally obscure rockabilly bands; there’s a wildness, a freshness in those records that came from discovering things for the first time. Try to recreate that music, and you’d never even come close.

• I’m listening to J.J. Cale constantly at the moment. People are either bored by him, or completely hypnotized. You couldn’t call it innovative, but he’s a genius. I’d put him right up there with the great blues soloists, even though he can obviously play jazz as well. River Runs Deep

• And some time ago I started listening to James Burton again. I hadn’t heard him since 1962, so I checked out Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard, the later Ricky Nelson, and even the Elvis stuff – which is pretty dire listening! Most guitarists burn out, it’s inevitable – even the caliber of Hendrix’s work fell off in the last year and a half of his life – but I saw James Burton with (Elvis) Costello and he’s still doing new things. He doesn’t copy his early work, but his identity is intact. How many players can you say that about? Susie-Q/Dale Hawkins with James Burton

• Initially I never dreamed of playing lead, I just wanted to play acoustic guitar like the Everly Brothers. I remember being shocked on hearing the flipside of Bye Bye Love and discovering a steel guitar hidden in there! I thought – these guys are hillbillies! But then, in almost the same month, Link Wray’s Rumble and Duane Eddy’s Movin’ ‘n’ Groovin’ came out… Link Wray was the one that really grabbed me. I even got to meet him in 1975 because the Voidoids were using the same studio as him while we were making the “Blank Generation” album. I told him about some pretty obscure things of his that had really inspired me, and I think he appreciated it. He left his amplifier lying around, an Ampeg with four 12-inch speakers, so heavy it took five people to shift, and I used it for some of the better solos on that album. If he reads this, I hope he forgives me. No one was supposed to touch it. Ace of Spades/Link Wray

• I really got into electric guitar by playing along to Ritchie Valens records. I later found out that a studio musician called Rene Hall had played a lot of it, but Valens himself was a great guitarist and some of his instrumentals were really innovative. Fast Freight was the first record with two bassists – Red Callender on double bass, and Rene Hall getting a totally different, clanky sound from a six-string Danelectro. Valens was so young at the time – he died aged 17 – but you could hear him stretching out, even then. Fast Freight

• (Watching Buddy Holly play at a 1957 rock ‘n roll review) Buddy Holly playing a Stratocaster was an amazing thing. The image of Elvis banging away on an acoustic guitar was well-known, of course, but suddenly here was this guy with this Martian-looking guitar. What’s more, he was doing the singing and taking the solos. The other acts – Frankie Lymon, The Clovers, The Drifters – all used the big house band, but the Crickets were doing everything by themselves. I thought, “that’s bizarre.” And because this was 1957, it was before Buddy Holly had cleaned up his image: he had a baggy suit, un-capped teeth and wire-rimmed glasses! He covered a lot of Little Richard songs, funnily. Blue Days, Black Nights

• (Seeing John Coltrane in concert, 1966) I’d been getting into jazz, and I’d barely just figured out bebop when I went to this concert and sat in the very front row. There I was, analyzing it, trying to understand this out-there jazz, but these horns were going full velocity right in my face and all of a sudden I realized that there was nothing to understand. It was coming from the same place as a Charlie Patton or Howlin’ Wolf record. Living Space

• Hearing Eight Miles High was one of the final breakthroughs for me. It was the first hint of something real, as opposed to all this fusion trash. Lou Reed was listening to them, too. Back then, when we first met, Roger McGuinn was the only guitarist he had anything good to say about. He also liked (saxophonist) Ornette Coleman’s Ramblin’, and exactly the same thing happened to him as to me; he was trying to understand it all, when suddenly he realized “shit – this is just rock ‘n roll.” Eight Miles High

• Sometimes you can be struggling along, when all of a sudden the things you’ve been listening to come together with a snap. And the next guitar solo after Eight Miles High that came to terms with free jazz was the Velvet Underground’s I Heard Her Call My Name. At first I thought it was terrible, awful. The way he let the wrong harmonics feed back was totally unacceptable at the time but it was completely intentional, he knew exactly what he was doing. I Heard Her Call My Name

On Playing/Practicing:

• Sometimes I look out there and see a bunch of 11-year-old girls who don’t care, and I’ve got a stock solo that I can fall back on. Other times you want to keep yourself on edge, hopefully without destroying the song. Then again, there are places where I can show a total lack of respect for the songs if I want. But sometimes you get up there and nothing works, it’s just total frustration. So you decide to play it safe – and you can’t even do that right.

• A big part of understanding the Velvet Underground is realizing the guitars are detuned. When I worked on “Blue Mask,” Lou Reed played a great deal in D, which I find very hard to play along to. I ended up lowering the whole tuning of my guitar to D and still playing an E shape, and it’s that drone factor that’s the key to the whole thing.

• 

  Albert Collins

  I have no qualms about using a capo these days… I used to think of them as purely a crutch for beginners, until I did a session with Albert Collins. It was amazing to be there, playing right next to him. He was using a capo on everything, putting it right up to the ninth or tenth fret. He used his Telecaster, the studio’s regular Fender Twin set clean on 5, and no boxes whatsoever – and yet all this distortion was coming out, just from his fingers. It was really quite distressing. Melt Down/Albert Collins

• Ever since the Voidoids, chord playing has been the priority; with Lloyd Cole, I’m trying to leave the high and low E’s ringing as much as possible, and then sliding chords around inside of that. My confidence has grown over the years, but I’ve never been entirely comfortable with solos. The way Richard Hell got them out of me was to make me do it over and over again until I got so angry and frustrated, I’d just smash away at the strings. Lou Reed generally left me alone. Some people think that the solo on Waves of Fear from “Blue Mask” was the best thing I ever did, and that’s all they want to hear, but I’d like to think I can play lyrical stuff and still put as much emotion in as that. Not the same kind of emotion, thank God… I really put myself in a state to play that part – it wasn’t fun at all. My biggest break, a Lou Reed album for RCA, and I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown and that they’d have to call a taxi and send me home! Waves of Fear

• There’s only one way I practice; for 15 years I’ve had this system of mixing the guitar in with a record and hearing it in stereo over headphones. I play along to blues things, or jazz if I’m feeling adventurous. I don’t enjoy sitting on my own and working out guitar parts, so this way it’s very immediate, I’m right in the middle of it. I remember once doing it with a song called Pharaoh’s Dance off Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew.” It’s very ambiguous, you don’t know what key it’s in, and I found that I could play along with it using any notes I wanted and whatever I played wasn’t wrong – just so long as I did it with confidence. Finding my way around the fingerboard by doing things like that is my alternative to playing scales up the neck. Pharaoh’s Dance

• They just brought out the Little Richard boxed set. Something as savage as Good Golly Miss Molly, the scream of those sax solos – I’ll never tire of it because there’s something there that cannot be recaptured, not even by him; he tried, and he never came close. That what I try to do in a solo, to capture something that people can relate to, musically and emotionally. And I would rather listen to someone who can barely play, who had some soul, who made mistakes, than hearing jazz-rock scales all night long. I think that people like that kind of music because it doesn’t threaten them, and they like to live ordered lives. Ultimately, I don’t think they want to come to terms with their own emotions. Good Golly Miss Molly

• The only piece of advice I have to give is to listen. I violently disagree with people who never listen to other music for fear of being influenced. Other music is not a threat! You cannot harm yourself by listening to a Charlie Christian solo over and over again. Just give yourself over, inundate yourself with it. You don’t need to worry about losing your own identity. Breakfast Feud/Charlie Christian break

• I’ve got my own style, I suppose, but I play both good things and bad things. My idols are basically Charlie Christian, Lester Young and Charlie Parker, and if you worship people like that – as anybody that has a brain should – then even if you could play a thousand times better than you do, it would still keep your ego under control. It keeps you from getting a swell head, to say the least.

On the state of rock music (1990… but he could be describing 2012):

• I don’t want to get too deeply into my Rock is Dead lecture, and at least Guns N’ Roses are a basic band with guitars, but I can hardly see how things can get much worse, really. On the other hand, music of such bad quality is so generally accepted these days that I’m afraid things will get worse. If you look at the sales figures, you can hardly say that rock is dying. But most of the rock around now is borrowing so heavily from the past that I’m scared that in a few years people won’t remember who Van Halen were, let alone Led Zeppelin or Jimi Hendrix. Perhaps there is good music, but I’m not hearing it.

• I can’t see what the “next step” is going to be; it seems as though all the obvious combinations, like jazz and rock, have been experimented with already. One of the last really new things for me was Brian Eno’s ambient music, and that’s just basically stuff on one chord – he’s a genius. Music’s the only thing that makes any sense to me, and if I really believed everything I’m saying here, I’d go back to being a lawyer. But it disturbs me that I have to wait for some unissued Charlie Christian or Jimmy Reed record for my musical enjoyment.

Rob shreds his way through the Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat… Live at the Bottom Line, NYC, 1983:

I’m a bit of a “completist,” but only with a few select artists. For example, I don’t need all 1,000 songs that Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded throughout his career. Just give me a little bit of this (the Herald Sessions), some of that (3-4 releases on Prestige and Bluesville), a couple of those (Aladdin, Gold Star, Arhoolie, etc.)… and I’m pretty well set.

Not the case with Miles Davis. The first time I heard his masterpiece “Kind of Blue,” I wanted it all. I wanted to hear everything even remotely like it… I wanted to hear all the steps he took to get there… I wanted to know how he managed to follow up on such an amazing piece of work… I wanted everything, and I wanted it now.

Well, that was some time before Columbia Records decided to release virtually every sound – including more than a few conversations – that he recorded in the studio. And even if those treasures were available to me at the time, I never would’ve been able to afford them (“The Complete Columbia Album Collection”: $237 on Amazon… and that doesn’t include the many alternate takes on the other Columbia box sets).

But damned if I didn’t end up with virtually everything he waxed all the way through the Columbia years. His earliest recordings with Charlie Parker. The Birth of the Cool. The Blue Note years. Almost all of the Prestige recordings. And yes, everything in the same zip code as “Kind of Blue.” As my sister Keena likes to say, “how do you have the time to listen to all that shit?”

Now subscription services like MOG and Spotify have spoiled all the fun by making these and other recordings readily available at one or two clicks of the mouse. But that’s OK. I’ve been listening to all this “shit” for years (as Miles himself would probably call it, or worse… read his very profane autobiography). And although I don’t pretend to be an expert, I definitely have my favorites in the Miles discography.

You’ll notice I don’t touch on electric Miles or the “comeback” years (basically everything after his ’81 release, “The Man with the Horn”). Actually, I hung tough with a lot of Miles’ electric stuff – especially “Bitches Brew” and “A Tribute to Jack Johnson” – and even found a few things to like with his pop-drenched comeback albums. But in my mind, the consistency of his brilliance drops off dramatically in the thick of his funk period, and even more during his comeback. Sorry, I’ll never equate All Blues with a cover of a Cindy Lauper song, no matter how well the latter is executed.

We’ll start with Bag’s Groove, by vibraphonist Milt Jackson. It’s one of those classic jazz compositions – instantly recognizable, often covered. Hard to beat the original, though, as Miles and Jackson were joined on the ’54 session by Thelonious Monk. An essential slice of jazz history. Bag’s Groove

I’m a sucker for soul jazz, and Miles practically invented the form with this extended workout from ’54. Horace Silver sits in on piano (I’m sure this composition set the stage for his many soulful Blue Note originals) and Lucky Thompson creates a smoky, late-night vibe on sax. You know you’re onto something special when at 13+ minutes it still seems a little short. Walkin’

Miles played this next jazz standard throughout his acoustic period. This version was recorded during one of two legendary sessions for Prestige (May 11 and October 26, 1956) that closed out his contract with the label. The band more than lived up to the title of the album “Cookin’” – it featured John Coltrane on sax, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Is there anything more beautiful than the sound of Miles playing a ballad through the Harmon mute? My Funny Valentine

I included this in a previous post, but it bears another listen… many more, in fact. It’s one of 10 compositions by Miles on the soundtrack to the 1958 Louis Malle film “Ascenseur Pour L’Echafaud (Lift to the Scaffold).” Words like “searching,” “timeless” and “moving” don’t do justice to the opening of this song. I’m reminded of Sam Phillips’ famous description of Howlin’ Wolf: “This is where the soul of man never dies.” Generique

Here’s one of the coolest arrangements I’ve ever come across. The basic theme is a series of quick, stabbing notes – almost James Brown-like – that leads into a layered section featuring some wonderful interplay between Miles and his sax men, Coltrane and Cannonball Adderley. And that leads to some inspired soloing by all three (Cannonball kicks things off with great flair). If I could play jazz, this would be on the set list. Milestones

Exhibit A from the greatest jazz album of all time. If you have it, you already know what makes it special. If you don’t own it… OK, I’ll be nice this time. Just get it. All Blues

“Sketches of Spain” – the ultimate “let’s give this dive a little class” album. Miles and composer/jazz pianist Gil Evans realized the potential of their previous collaborations on this stunning release from 1960. My favorite moments are near the very end, in the 12-minute closer Solea. Drummer Jimmy Cobb starts crackin’ the rim, the orchestra locks into a Latin-flavored rhythm, and Miles dances around it like a matador toying with his prey. Solea

Miles dedicated this next tune to his longtime producer Teo Macero. Drummer Jimmy Cobb lays down a circular rhythm, and then Miles works his magic – jabbing it, caressing it, letting it breathe. Coltrane adds a gorgeous solo too. Deep stuff… from Miles’ ’61 release, “Someday My Prince Will Come.” Teo

Many critics prefer Miles’ performances from December 1965 at the Plugged Nickel in Chicago, where his second great quintet (with Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams) began deconstructing many of the standards he’d been playing for years. I’m partial to his live recordings at the Blackhawk (1961), simply because Miles sounds every bit as sharp as the fine threads he wore onstage. In his autobiography, Miles bitched about Hank Mobley’s sax playing during the Blackhawk dates. Normally I’d defer to the master, but Hank sounds pretty damn good to me on this outing. Neo basically is a jacked-up version of Teo, with pianist Wynton Kelly driving the rhythm a lot harder than he does on the previous cut. Miles’ playing on both is magnificent. Neo

The best performances of the second quintet are like great abstract paintings. Individual solos no longer really matter; keys and rhythms float away too. I stop listening for Miles or Shorter or any semblance of form or structure and just let the sound wash over me… the sound of five kindred spirits heading off into the great unknown. Masqualero

I’m not sure how long this video will stay up on youtube, so enjoy it while you can… Miles. Coltrane. Live. Opening number from “Kind of Blue.” This is why we live.

Sunday morning – a time of worship. And for me, that worship involves a cup of joe, the Sunday Times, and a playlist of soul-soothing music. (Hey, I did 12 years of hard time at parochial schools, so you Bible-thumpers can just back off right now!)

Now this sacred songlist is about as close as I get to much-maligned labels like Easy Listening or New Age. But don’t expect Mantovani, Enya, Celtic Women or Windham Hill. I’m trying to wake up, not go back to sleep.

On the other hand, I rarely play gospel music on Sunday morning. That’s because the best gospel music, in terms of energy level, is right up there with Metallica or the Jonas Brothers. It’s really something that should be experienced in person – preferably in an inner-city, African-American, “make you sweat, sway and swoon” church (I’m still searching for the right one, honest… I swear). But as an appropriate soundtrack for Arts and Leisure, it just doesn’t fit the bill.

Then again, Sunday morning music should not be without a certain aura of spirituality, as subtle as it might be. I’m thinking Coltrane-like spirituality, as embodied by both John and Alice. Or even the worshipful sound of Bill Evans or Ahmad Jamal on piano. And let’s stick with instrumentals for now. I’m going after an ecumenical vibe. Lyrics, like the Good Book itself, are subject to different interpretations and endless debate.

Someone suggested I should mix it up with a little Sanskrit chanting. So I gave it a shot. But I guess I’m a little too American to take that leap. Repetition’s cool when you hear it in a song by John Lee Hooker or Lightnin’ Hopkins, but kind of annoying when delivered by your yoga teacher. Besides, chanting reminds me of the Hare Krishnas I spent much of the ‘70s avoiding at airports.

With that off my chest, I’ll also admit that one of my favorite Sunday-morning albums is a musical love letter to Eastern culture and religion. John McLaughlin gained fame and notoriety with his fiery electric guitar on Miles Davis’ landmark “Bitches Brew” album (definitely not Sunday morning music). But his solo album from 1970, “My Goals Beyond,” is something altogether different. The songs were assembled as a tribute to his Indian guru Sri Chinmoy, and McLaughlin plays stunning acoustic guitar throughout in settings that range from single-note meditations to big, droning passages with soprano sax, violin, tablas and drums. It may be a product of its time, but “My Goals Beyond” is a timeless piece of work with moments of great beauty – like this one from his original composition, Follow Your Heart: Follow Your Heart/John McLaughlin

If Alice Coltrane taught us anything, it’s that spiritual music isn’t necessarily “happy” music – it can be dark and dangerous but still uplifting. And few songs prove this point better than the next one. This groove sounds ancient to me, as old as any root that feeds the blues. The bass player is jazz legend Ron Carter – another Miles Davis alumnus – and he’s laying down one of the great bottom lines of all time. Then there’s Alice, playing an instrument normally associated with heavenly bliss. But this harp sounds as deep as the dark soil beneath us. It’s powerful stuff, haunting yet hopeful… from a master who left us in 2007. Given the huge shadow cast by her husband, she remains one of the jazz world’s most underrated artists. Huntington Ashram Monastery/Alice Coltrane

With due respect to Alice, let’s move on to a song by John Coltrane – and so many great ones to choose from. In an earlier post, I confessed that I tend to bail out of Coltrane’s more manic, atonal pieces. Some would argue that those performances are his crowning achievements. I prefer the more melodic vibe of his Atlantic recordings, as well as his earlier albums for the Impulse! label, like “Crescent” and “Coltrane.” Although a jazz standard, this next song – named after Coltrane’s first wife, Juanita Naima Grubb – seems to have the more universal appeal of a simple prayer. Naima/John Coltrane

Jazz producer Orrin Keepnews clearly knew good Sunday music when he heard it, which is why he booked New York City’s fabled Village Vanguard on Sunday, June 25, 1961, to record five separate performances by pianist Bill Evans and his trio. Two years prior, Evans played a key role in what many critics consider to be the greatest jazz album ever recorded, Miles Davis’ “Kind of Blue” (are you noticing a theme here?). Davis loved Evan’s quietly expressive playing, and the two shared an appreciation of the empty spaces in music that can create far more drama than a flurry of notes. You can hear the same, sparse delivery on “Sunday at the Village Vanguard,” as well as near-telepathic interplay among Evans and his band mates, bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Improvisational music of the highest order – appropriate for any day of the week: Gloria’s Step (Take 2)/Bill Evans Trio

I can’t resist including another Miles Davis favorite, pianist Ahmad Jamal… and instead of speaking for Miles again, I’ll just share the man’s own words (from “Miles: The Autobiography”): “I had gone to hear him once when I was out that way (Chicago, where the Pittsburgh native had a steady gig at the Pershing Hotel) and he knocked me out with his concept of space, his lightness of touch, his understatement, and the way he phrased notes and chords and passages… I loved his lyricism on piano, the way he played and the spacing he used in the ensemble voicing of his groups. I have always thought Ahmad Jamal was a great piano player who never got the recognition he deserved.” Jamal’s still performing and is scheduled to appear at the Newport Jazz Festival on August 7. I usually start my Sundays with this gorgeous cut from “The Awakening”: Patterns/Ahmad Jamal

Guitarist Larry Coryell is commonly associated with the band Eleventh House, which played that dreaded form of music called jazz fusion that many of us listened to back in the day. I can’t bear to hear five notes of the stuff today (which, of course, takes less than a millisecond for your typical jazz fusion band to play). But Coryell put out a fine acoustic/electric album in ’74, “The Restful Mind” – and it serves as a nice companion piece to McLaughlin’s “My Goal’s Beyond.” It has one of those “seagull and sunset” covers with classic Seventies typography… something you’d typically see on the front of a self-help book. But the music inside tells a different story, drawing from sources as diverse as French composer Maurice Ravel, American songwriter Jimmy Webb, and the Eastern-influenced band Oregon, which backs Coryell on “Mind.” Trust me, it all somehow works. Julie La Belle/Larry Coryell

The paper’s read (mostly skimmed)… coffee’s cold… time to walk the dog and pick up whatever bottles landed in my yard last night. But I’m still feeling the spirit as I listen to Astral Traveling, a cut from Pharoah Sanders’ 1971 release, “Thembi.” And although I’ve never experienced myself outside of this mortal coil, I get the sense that anything’s possible as I drift away on the heavenly sound of Pharoah’s soprano sax. My dog sits and stares, but with an ear cocked to the speaker… maybe she’s feeling the spirit too. Astral Traveling/Pharoah Sanders

All that talk about Miles and nothing to show for it. I’ll fix that. Miles Davis with John Coltrane – 4/2/59, CBS Studio 61, New York City. That sound, that look… Forget about his screwed-up personal life. The man clearly had tapped into something eternal.

So this guy sends me a couple of comments… How could you overlook this tune? Why didn’t you include this artist? And I tell him, write your own damn post. Well, he did… and I’m pleased to report it meets RCR’s high standards for thought-filled, fact-based music criticism. Here’s Kevin Swan’s take on the forgotten genius of jazz guitar – Grant Green.

When I fled the hills of Summit County, Ohio, for a small college nestled in the mountains of southeastern Vermont in the mid ’70s, I carried with me a few clothes, my Martin D-18 and three wooden produce crates full of vinyl LPs. Everyone I knew had at least one of those lettuce boxes (pre-iPod), as they were the perfect size for record albums yet barely light enough to be carried by one person.

I eventually found my way to the basement college radio station there, and after a semester of providing menial off-air intern work, I landed a late-night disc jockey spot. At 37 watts, the station’s transmitter could hardly be called a “flame-thrower,” but in that neck of the woods, it was the only station at the far left of the dial (and of the political spectrum). After sundown, it beamed a few miles west into Vermont, east into New Hampshire and barely crossed the border of Massachusetts.

I had been playing in garage bands for a few years and was nutty for modern music, especially jazz-tinged experimenters like Gary Burton, Frank Zappa and Steely Dan. They were hip, smart and geeky all at the same time, and when I played their music I often also aired their “primary sources.” I would play a song from a big-time rock band, followed by a cut from an artist that influenced them in some way. So, Steely Dan’s cover of Ellington’s East St. Louis Toodle-oo was followed by the real, original deal: Black and Tan Fantasy, a song co-written by Sir Duke and Bubber Miley.

Decades later, I heard Walter Becker, the guitarist and one-half of Steely Dan, reveal in an interview with Marian McPartland that his primary influence as a guitar player had been Grant Green. In the era of Guitar Hero and the ubiquitous, aimless noodling of gear rats at Guitar Center – drunk on Hendrix and Stevie Ray – the subtle playing style of Green can be a challenging change of pace. It is classic literature versus pulp fiction, the full complexity of a Cabernet compared with the bum’s rush of Thunderbird.

Grant Green played blues and boogie-woogie music in St. Louis in the late 1950s before transitioning to “hard bop” jazz, performing with drummer Elvin Jones. New York was the jazz magnet, though, and Green was drawn there in 1961 to record his first organ trio side for the legendary Blue Note label. He was both group leader and session man, eventually becoming the label’s most prolific recording musician.

With Baby Face Willette at the Hammond B-3 and Ben Dixon on the kit, Green’s deft touch and staccato phrasing is whimsical yet artistic on Miss Ann’s Tempo: Miss Ann’s Tempo

My heart was first stolen by Grant Green, though, in nearly 15 minutes of contemplative piano and guitar sketching on Idle Moments. (This could serve as a one-song textbook for any musician trying to play slowly, quietly and fully, all at the same time.) Less influenced by chord-based guitarists (think Wes Montgomery), Green chose horn phrasing, emulating Charley Parker’s sax and Miles’ trumpet: Idle Moments

On the Blue Note release “Up at Minton’s,” Green doubles Turrentine’s swinging sax runs with grace and wit, throws in a few countermelodies, and then launches into a tasty solo: Broadway/Stanley Turrentine with Grant Green

He grew as a composer and session player, drawing style and breadth from his mid-’60s work with diverse talents such as Herbie Hancock, Stanley Turrentine and the hugely underrated piano player Sonny Clark. Green also didn’t shy away from the obligatory reinvention of a show-tune standard – although this one, from the posthumously released “Matador,” is probably more of a tribute to Coltrane (in fact, Green stole half of the sax great’s band – pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones – to record this album). I love how Green playfully scoots around and through the melody: My Favorite Things

His choices (if indeed they were his) of material to cover on recordings weren’t always top-notch. I have to skip right past the vapid I Want to Hold Your Hand, and Ease Back falls flat on my ear as somewhat contrived. While Green’s guitar is kept high in the mix, it lacks originality and seems less interesting, especially when he throws in more repetitive riffs. Better to spend a few minutes with the groove-laden dexterity of Sookie Sookie or his live recording of Maiden Voyage: Maiden Voyage

Personal problems, not the least being heroin addiction, side-tracked Green for most of the late 1960s, and his return in 1969 as a funk and groove player reflected the changing landscape of music and recording. On The Windjammer he seems less introspective, more willing to experiment with new sounds and techniques than in his earlier and more straight-ahead recordings: The Windjammer

So how is it that Green’s name rarely comes up in a late-night Great Guitarists Discussion? Taking nothing away from the obvious artistry, my feeling is that his impassive stage presence – sitting stock still, looking at his hands while playing – didn’t click with his live audiences. Green also skipped around the style book, recording ballads, covers, gospel, Latin and groove – all in a single decade. And his style of playing, which relied on vocal- or horn-based melody, was, until recently, considered anachronistic.

In 1979, Green’s heart gave out at age 43, in part due to his heroin use. His son, Grant Green, Jr., carries on the family tradition (albeit left-handed), recording and touring with his guitar- and organ-anchored Masters of Groove. To come full circle, I should note that Steely Dan session drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie plays drums for Junior.

Green on Blue… Some of our favorite Grant Green album covers on the Blue Note label:

Here’s a little taste of “The Latin Bit” – muy sabroso! My Little Suede Shoes

Grant Green on video… Only one that we’re aware of on youtube. Here’s an excerpt from a jam session with fellow jazz guitarists Barney Kessel and Kenny Burrell.

Photo: Herman Leonard

I grew up listening to a lot of jazz. Not the edgy stuff. My dad mostly liked straight-ahead piano players like Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner and Earl “Fatha” Hines. He also had those “can’t miss” soundtracks for Sixties cocktail parties – stuff like Dave Brubeck, Getz-Gilberto, Charlie Byrd… even the ubiquitous Sergio Mendes & Brazil ’66. You couldn’t mix a Manhattan back then without taking a side-trip to Rio.

Pop had a big, clunky reel-to-reel tape player so he could keep the tunes coming without having to stack LPs on a turntable with an automatic changer. That contraption was reserved for my stuff, so I could listen to two sides of Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland” or Cream’s “Wheels of Fire” without having to get my ass out of the beanbag.

After leaving home, I began to develop my own taste in jazz – and I eventually noticed that my favorite artists were conspicuously absent from dad’s record collection. Not just lesser-known but hugely talented players like Bud Powell or Art Pepper. I’m talking about artists who are universally recognized as the absolute masters of the form – Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins… How could my father reject these giants of jazz?

I knew it wasn’t a matter of race, because he had no problem expressing his admiration for Peterson or Garner. Then I finally realized what turned my dad against the titans: they were all junkies at one point or another (or, in the case of Parker, pretty much around the clock) during their careers.

Maybe he didn’t know that Stan Getz struggled with drug addiction too. Or that Miles beat his habit with the same single-mindedness that guided his best performances (he took up boxing to strengthen his resolve). It just seemed like, no matter how great you were, your latest long-player wouldn’t get shelf space at the Quine house without passing the drug test.

And that worked out fine in the long run, because all I needed was a little taste of the hard stuff – hard jazz, that is – before moving on to the main banquet. Maybe if I grew up listening to Miles’ “Kind of Blue” I wouldn’t be so attached to it today. Maybe it has greater meaning to me because I came to it on my own.

I distinctly remember coming across Thelonious Monk for the first time. I was in my teens, hanging out with a kid down the street whose older brother was a full-blown, drug-addled hippie. We found a record in his collection with an insane photo on the cover showing Monk as a fighter for the French Resistance. He’s seated at a dusty piano with a rifle at his side… a Nazi officer is tied to a chair in the back… other guns and grenades are strewn about… What the hell is this?

We dropped the needle on it, expecting something closer to screeching, atonal free-jazz. But the music had a strange, beautiful logic to it – like hearing an extremely gifted pianist play Chopsticks… backwards… wearing oven mitts… and maybe slightly impaired.

I sort of filed that one in the memory banks and went back to my steady diet of heavy rockers, including Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Then I went off to college, where I decided to expand my horizons by digging into the jazz bins at the local record stores. Couldn’t resist buying a used copy of “Criss-Cross” by Monk, which included the title cut and several other thorny originals. But the tune that really warmed me up to Monk was a cover of the old warhorse Tea for Two. You could easily imagine a big-band crooner named Vic serenading his favorite gal (Sal) with an especially unctuous version of this song. Thankfully, Monk took the usual detour by turning the song inside out, creating something far more mysterious than the standard treatment… Tea for Two/Thelonious Monk

So I was off and running with Monk… who was probably banned from our house due to an infamous drug bust in 1951 (he also was banned from most New York City nightclubs when his cabaret card was revoked following his conviction).

Then I picked up a two-record set of Coltrane’s best recordings on Atlantic Records. As Sam Phillips famously said about Howlin’ Wolf, “this is where the soul of man never dies.” I couldn’t believe my dad never told me about this guy. Once again, it probably had something to do with a fair amount of substance abuse early in Coltrane’s career – addictions he eventually overcame with what he described as a religious experience. Years later, it didn’t surprise me to find out that there’s a Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco – seemed like a perfectly appropriate way to celebrate one of the most deeply spiritual sounds in music. Here’s another radical reworking of an old standard… Summertime/John Coltrane

Some critics prefer Coltrane’s later recordings on the Impulse! label, including a few extended workouts that don’t conform to any noticeable structure… like, for example, a basic key and time signature. I don’t doubt these are important, transformative recordings – the jazz equivalent of what the Sex Pistols did to rock in the Seventies. But you won’t catch me listening to “Never Mind the Bollocks,” and I’ve rarely been able to hang with Coltrane’s manic, free-jazz excursions for more than a few minutes.

I keep going back to his best stuff on Atlantic, where Coltrane seemed to strike that perfect balance between playing inside and outside – much in the way that Miles walked the same line with his great Sixties quintet with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. Miles and Coltrane were moving away from the show tunes that stifled more than a few players in the Fifties, but they were still tethered to something… even if that “something” seemed to be floating in space too. Here’s Miles at his ethereal best on a tune from “Sorcerer,” released in 1967… Masqualero/Miles Davis

I doubt if my dad ever read “Straight Life,” Art Pepper’s harrowing account of his years as a heroin addict. But he must’ve been aware of it (no shelf space at our house for Pepper either). His book is a completely honest and unapologetic look at what addicts do to get from one fix to another… steal, rob, lie and, in Pepper’s case, even pawn his precious sax. Pepper’s rough life – including a lengthy stint in prison – stands in stark contrast to his effortless and achingly beautiful sound, which often has been identified as part of a cool, “West Coast” aesthetic. But one of his best recordings was with a tough New York rhythm section that backed Miles in the Fifties. On this cut, Pepper had to borrow someone else’s sax minutes before he entered the studio (he’d just pawned his main instrument for a quick fix)… Birks Works/Art Pepper

Outside of Parker, the ultimate jazz junkie may have been trumpeter Chet Baker, whose many years as a heroin addict nearly destroyed his playing – not to mention his once model-worthy profile. Like Pepper, Baker was associated with the West Coast sound. And he also sought out the New York jazz mafia to help legitimize his reputation as a major player. But Baker never overcame his demons and eventually fell to his death from a hotel window in Amsterdam. Ironically, he was embraced by both the cocktail set as well as fellow junkies who liked to nod off to his tender ballads. Seems fitting that we should end this post with one of those ballads, from the classic album “Chet,” recorded in 1959. Never showed up next to dad’s hi-fi, but it’s a staple at my house… You’d Be Nice To Come Home To/Chet Baker