Grant Green

the long version

This biography celebrates the life and music of a jazz guitar genius whose legend continues to grow today. Best known as a session leader and sideman for Blue Note Records in the '60s - he played on nineteen Blue Note sessions in 1961 - Grant Green helped make jazz guitar playing its own art form. His aggressive, rhythmic tone was simultaneously fluid and eloquent, and he moved freely between traditional bop, blues, gospel, Latin, soul, pop-jazz, and funk. Hitting the spotlight at age 25, Green recorded 93 albums from the early '60s through the late '70s, both as a stellar sideman and a leader. He worked with dozens of jazz greats - Herbie Hancock, Stanley Turrentine, Art Blakey, and many others - but his overall contributions to jazz were sorely underrated during his lifetime. Today, his music is sampled by acid-jazz and hip-hop artists such as Public Enemy, Us[subscript 3], and A Tribe Called Quest, and several tribute albums have been recorded. This unique memoir honors Green's personal spirit and musical brilliance through the eyes of his family, close friends, fellow musicians, Blue Note Records staff, music critics, and loving fans of all kinds. This book also paints a revealing portrait of Green's lesser-known struggles with racial and religious barriers, failed marriages, drugs, and the declining health that led to his death in 1979 at age 43.