Grant Green - I Want To Hold Your Hand (1965) MP3 ~ 160Kbps ~ RS.com ~ 56mb
One of Grant Green's three great sessions with organist Larry Young and drummer Elvin Jones. Hank Mobley joins the trio for beautiful explorations on "Speak Low" and "Stella By Starlight" as well as two contemporary tunes: "Corcovado" and the title track.
Amazon.com reviewer: I Want To Hold Your hand is an album by Grant Green that was made because Green wanted to and said that he took the route that Wes Montgomery did, covering pop tunes and gaining more recognition. Sadly, unlike Montgomery, Green didn't have any popular success with these albums, but they make for very nice swinging sets.
This album is truely an album for guitarists to study if they are learning jazz guitar. Listen to his sound and his dexterity. Other than that, this album is far from the greatest album in Green's cataloge.
The opener, I Want To Hold Your Hand is very beautiful. It took me a while to figure out what song it was from hearing it, but that was just because of Green's gift for song interpertation. The song definately sounds like a 1960's Bachelor music hit, but unfortunately it was not. Maybe due to lack of distribution, and it being on a strictly jazz label as where Montgomery's hits were on A&M Records.
As the rather boring, bossa nova craze was sweaping the country it had its ties and impact on jazzers. Corcovado (Quiet Nights) written by who else, but Antonio Carlos Jobim, swings. The best of the rest are Speak Low and Stella By Starlight.
The neat trio consisting of Larry Young on organ, Elvin Jones, (RIP) on drums, and Green on guitar are complimented with Hank Mobley on tenor who dropped by for the session. This is somewhat of a classic, but there is much more by Green to check out. Idle Moments, Street Of Dreams, Green Street, Solid, and many more during his run on Blue Note Records.
Allaboutjazz.com: The title of this March 1965 session doesn't exactly inspire thoughts of collective interplay. And, sure enough, the music within is dreadfully dull. The third of four collaborations between guitarist Grant Green and organist Larry Young, I Want To Hold Your Hand, was also the last Blue Note record the guitarist made until 1969's Carryin' On (which initiated a three-year spate of rather dull pop- funk). The arrangements are bland at best; ignited only by the inventive cues drummer Elvin Jones interjects. Young, a helluva more brilliant player than this disc allows, comps rather methodically like a hack-pianist in a lounge bar. Hank Mobley sounds positively somnambulant. And Green, who solos meaningfully enough, only comes to life on hi s solos for the standards "Speak Low, " "Stella By Starlight," "At Long Last Love" and Steve Allen's corny "This Could Be The Start Of Something Big." Everyone here has sounded more interesting (and alive) elsewhere. Perhaps Blue Note w ill consider issuing the far more interesting Green-Young collaborations Talkin About (1964) or Street of Dreams (1964). Listeners may want, instead, to check out the more interesting His Majesty King Funk (1965), recorded a mere two months later for Verve, for evidence of how good organist Larry Young and guitarist Grant Green sounded together.
Personnel: Grant Green (guitar);
Hank Mobley (tenor saxophone);
Larry Young (organ);
Elvin Jones (drums)
Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey on March 31, 1965. Originally released on Blue Note (84202).
Tracks: 1. I Want To Hold Your Hand
2. Speak Low
3. Stella By Starlight
4. Corcovado (Quiet Nights)
5. This Could Be The Start Of Something
6. At Long Last Love
