Rubber City Review

Alright, guitar fans. I know all of you have your favorite examples of six-string nirvana – Derek & the Dominos, The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s first album, Jeff Beck’s “Blow by Blow,” blah, blah, blah… But here’s one you’ve probably never heard.

The album: Chico Hamilton’s “The Dealer,” released on the Impulse! label in 1966. The guitarist: a 23-year-old Larry Coryell, making his recording debut. The bandleader: a legendary jazz drummer who started playing back in the late-‘30s in L.A. with his high school classmates Dexter Gordon, Charles Mingus and Illinois Jacquet.

Technically, “The Dealer” is a jazz album – but it stretches the meaning of that term at every turn. A couple of songs are in that riff-based, soul-jazz vein that the Blue Note label mined so well back in the Sixties. One is a fairly straight-ahead blues, at least the kind that you’d hear a classic organ combo play. Another takes a left turn into “psychedelic jazz” – because you couldn’t swing a dead, or stoned, cat back then without hitting a song aimed at that vast new audience known as the American hippie.

Rumor (aka Wikipedia) has it that Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor was a big fan of Coryell’s playing on this album. And to help prove the point, I’ve combined samples of solos from “The Dealer” and “Sticky Fingers.” First, you’ll hear Coryell launching into his break on For Mods Only (did they have to make the swinger reference so obvious?). Next, you’ll hear Taylor’s playing on the jazzy second half of Can’t You Hear Me Knocking. Given that Taylor appropriates big chunks of Coryell’s solo, I think it’s safe to say he spent a lot of time between ’66 and ’70 hooked on “The Dealer.” For Mods Only/Can’t You Hear Me Knocking

But the most startling moments on the album are right out of the gate, as Coryell makes a huge statement on the title cut. It’s the only jazz solo I’m aware of that sounds completely indebted to early rock ‘n roll – specifically, Chuck Berry. Coryell’s playing on this tune gets my attention every time it randomly shows up on my iPod. Clearly, he misspent much of his youth woodshedding along to rock and blues records… then he probably migrated to some Wes Montgomery, and maybe Django too. But all of these influences seem to come together organically – sorry, can’t think of a better adverb here – in Coryell’s loose and playful solo. The Dealer

As you can tell, Coryell also isn’t afraid to take his playing a little outside too. But he does it in a way that doesn’t sound the least bit calculated. I like how this next solo starts out fairly conventional and then devolves to the point where Coryell’s almost off the fretboard altogether. And Chico, another restless explorer, eggs him on with a few well-placed cracks of the snare. Now this is my idea of free jazz… Thoughts

Just when you think Coryell’s completely off the rails, he settles down and pulls off some pretty convincing blues licks. Although he’s credited with “writing” the next tune, it’s really not much of a composition – just a basic organ-combo workout that you could hear in countless inner-city clubs back in the Sixties (check this for more on the glory days of the B3). And he had the cojones to name the thing after himself, with a nod to another fearless wanderer… Larry of Arabia

If all this jaw-dropping guitar weren’t enough, the 1999 release of “The Dealer” on CD includes four bonus tracks from other sessions featuring the great Hungarian-born jazz guitarist Gabor Szabo. A master of the second-note drone and other exotic flourishes, Szabo was a big influence on Carlos Santana and many other Sixties rock guitarists (Santana used his original, Gypsy Queen, as the coda to Peter Green’s Black Magic Woman). Here’s Szabo strutting his stuff on El Toro… El Toro

Coryell went on to a successful career playing in a number of settings, including jazz-rock with his band The Eleventh House (can’t say I’m a fan; I prefer one of his more acoustic outings, which we touched on here). Approaching his 90^th birthday, Chico currently teaches at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City and occasionally tours with his band Euphoria. He played in Lena Horne’s band… scored music for film and TV… recorded with Rolling Stone Charlie Watts… mentored more contemporary rockers like former Spin Doctors guitarist Eric Schenkman and Blues Traveler John Popper… and, for my money, almost stole the show on the HBO documentary “The Jazz Baroness.”

I’m sure both men look back at “The Dealer” as a defining moment – a near-perfect start for Coryell, and a high point in Hamilton’s successful run as a bandleader in the Sixties, often with the popular Charles Lloyd on sax and Szabo on guitar.

We’ll close it out with Coryell playing some very Wes-like runs on this ballad, written by Chico and arranger Jimmy Cheatham… Baby, You Know

Chico in 2009, Live at Borders… When I’m 88, I’d like to have a steady gig at the local bookstore (but I’m assuming such establishments won’t exist when I’m that age).

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.