Blue Note

Horace Silver Further Explorations (Blue Note 1958)

- Francois 1 Comment

Further Explorations, pianist Horace Silver’s sixth release on Blue Note, is a revealing album in his catalogue. Silver branches out beyond his idiom, further developing tunes with Latin rhythm, the minor key and unusual bar lenghts. Carefully crafted but uncluttered, the album doesn’t stress the down-home feeling Horace Silver incorporated into modern jazz. But Silver’s innovative writing and supreme piano concept make it an extremely rewarding listening experience.

911iAJn4x6L._SL1500_

Personnel

Horace Silver (piano), Clifford Jordan (tenor saxophone), Art Farmer (trumpet), Teddy Kotick (bass), Louis Hayes (drums)

Recorded

on January 13 at Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey

Released

as BLP 1589 in 1958

Track listing

Side A:
The Outlaw
Melancholy Mood
Pyramid
Side B:
Moon Rays
Safari
Ill Wind


The album sits between Stylings Of Silver, which had the same line-up except Hank Mobley instead of Clifford Jordan, and the albums Silver made with his longstanding group from 1959 to 1964, consisting of Blue Mitchell, Junior Cook, Gene Taylor and Roy Brooks. The ensemble playing of the group on Further Explorations is outstanding. Art Farmer contributes elegant solos and his sound is crystalline. Clifford Jordan’s playing, albeit a bit guarded at times, is excellent.

The first two cuts make it clear that although Further Explorations is an appropriate title, More Stylings Of Silver would be on the money as well. The Outlaw has unusual bar lenghts, a Latin beat alternating with 4/4 time and labyrinthine stop-time sections, yet moves along swiftly in the manner of early Silver gems such as Room 608. (from Horace Silver And The Jazz Messengers) It’s intricate, but at the same time would still be a credible juke box tune.

The second composition, the ballad Melancholy Mood, is a change of mood indeed. It’s a ballad that starts as a warm-hearted duet between Silver and Teddy Kotick, (one of Charlie Parker’s favorite bass players) who plays bowed bass on the Thelonious Monkish-theme. Louis Hayes chimes in with smooth, elevating brushwork. Silver’s solo is a gem, mixing long stretches of brooding minor chords and notes with sensuous phrases and repeated funky licks.

Both Pyramid and Moon Rays have perplexing, yet swinging themes. Pyramid is a mix of a catchy melody, Latin tinges and stop-time choruses, wherein Art Farmer finds his way with lyrical, long flowing lines. Moon Rays is the eleven-minute long centre-piece of the album. As counts for all tunes, the melody, again partly Latin, is exasperatingly beautiful. The manner in which Silver’s occasional old-timey lines travel in twisted ways again proofs the influence of Thelonious Monk. The parts of Clifford Jordan and Art Farmer are proficient, but somehow fail to get on the magic bus of Silver’s inventive tune.

Jordan and Farmer are much better on Safari, a re-visit of the trio take Silver did with Art Blakey and Gene Ramey on his Blue Note debut Introducing The Horace Silver Trio in 1952. At breakneck speed, Clifford Jordan finally has gotten the real hot blues. Arlen and Koehler’s Ill Wind, the only non-Silver composition on the album, refers to Things Ain’t What They Used To Be with a couple of notes that Silver also uses in his interesting solo. Ill Wind is not the distinctive melody you’d dream up as an ending to the carefully prepared, wonderful set of Silver inventions that comprise Further Explorations.

Reuben Wilson Love Bug (Blue Note 1969)

- Francois Leave a comment

Basically, the artistic success of a jazz album dedicated to pop and funk music depends on the quality of the musicians and the way they interact. In this respect, organist Reuben Wilson and the heavy-weight crew he assembled for Love Bug in March 1969, presented a cum laude performance. It’s neither glib nor pretentious, but an allround groove album.

1410789348_front

Personnel

Reuben Wilson (organ), Lee Morgan (trumpet), George Coleman (tenor saxophone), Grant Green (guitar), Idris Muhammad (drums)

Recorded

on March 21, 1969 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BST 84317 in 1969

Track listing

Side A
Hot rod
I’m Gonna Make You Love Me
I Say A Little Prayer
Side B
Love Bug
Stormy
Back Out


Wilson’s debut for Blue Note half a year earlier, On Broadway, contained a mix of soul and tin pan alley. Follow-up Love Bug, including three long groove cuts and a danceable rendition of I Say A Little Prayer, puts the emphasis on pop and funk. In an interview in her book Grant Green: Rediscovering The Forgotten Genius Of Jazz Guitar, Sharon Andrews Green, the biography writer of guitarist Grant Green, Wilson said:

“See, I came up with this idea of playing pop music with jazz. I didn’t think they should be limited. In a lot of ways it had already been done, but not necessarily given the appreciation. They used a lot of jazz musicians in Motown. They were background players. So instead of having them in the background, it was just a matter of bringing them to the foreground. When I went to Grant with these things I wanted to do, he was just ecstatic. He was like: ‘Yeah, man. Let’s go. This is hip. Come on, Ru, let’s do this thing.’”

At which time the established team of sidemen came into the picture. Playing with the famous Lee Morgan and crew was a big deal for the organist, but Wilson is composed and authoritative. The way he embellishes the extra slow boogaloo Hot Rod with meandering phrases suggests a mind that’s intent on both logic and understated emotion. Sound-wise, Wilson is almost indistinguisable from fellow organist Lonnie Smith. As if Wilson borrowed his organ; the register and pitch are alike. His phrasing, however, is less flamboyant, more introverted. A minor complaint about Hot Rod: one could do without the drum solo near the end.

Otherwise, the bass-heavy back beat of Idris Muhammad is key to the irresistable charm of Love Bug. It’s there on the title track; an uptempo, sharp-as-a-tack threesome of snare, bass and hi-hat that puts you smack, dab, in the middle of a soulful groove and stimulates Wilson, Green, Coleman and Morgan to put their best foot forward. And on Back Out as well. It has a beat that resembles the beat of Spinning Wheel, the 1968 hit from Blood, Sweat & Tears. At the time, Blood, Sweat & Tears’ combination of jazz and rock raised quite a few eyebrows in the jazz community and led to a number of hot debates about the state of jazz in periodicals such as Downbeat Magazine. Apart from this, the beat that Wilson and Muhammad incorporated is effective and swinging.

Grant Green had interpreted some pop tunes on mid-sixties Blue Note albums, but the territory of funk, which he had been preoccupated with as a listener for some time, was fresh ground. After a troubling period wherein Green had disappeared out of the limelight, because of both a drug problem and a disappointment in the music business, Green sounds invigorated. Love Bug would stimulate Green to boost his career by delving deeper into funk, starting with Carryin’ On in October, 1969. Love Bug and Carryin’ On brought Green back into the Blue Note family. George Coleman is in particularly fine form; his playing is in the possession of both gutbucket feeling and complexity.

Reuben Wilson’s pop covers on Love Bug contain tight ensemble work and a lithe feeling. I’m Gonna Make You Love Me – a Gamble & Huff composition that was a hit for Dee Dee Warwick in 1966 and a smash hit in 1968 for the combination Supremes/Temptations – has a natural, irresistable flow. The laid-back comping of Wilson and smart combination of chords and strummed bass parts by Grant Green blends well together. George Coleman takes a lyrical, vocalised solo. Lee Morgan delivers a far from pedestrian bit, but his mind seems to be elsewhere and there are some bum notes. On the whole album, George Coleman is in better form than Morgan.

Burt Bacharach’s I Say A Little Prayer has a sunny feeling and bouncy vibe. It cooks with ease and boasts delicate phrases by Grant Green and understated, yet spirited statements by Reuben Wilson Stormy, a Classics IV hit from 1969, gets a nice Latin treatment.

Love Bug contains three deft and danceable excursions into the pop realm and three cookin’ funk originals by Reuben Wilson. It is proof organ jazz, as performed by the talented and knowledgable, was smart and groovy at the same time.

Lou Donaldson Midnight Creeper (Blue Note 1968)

- Francois 1 Comment

Of the popular jazz funk dates alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson did in the late sixties, Midnight Creeper is one of the best. It’s a driving date involving a mellow-blowing leader among a bunch of talented sidemen that were becoming successful leaders in their own right.

Lou Donaldson - Midnight Creeper

Personnel

Lou Donaldson (alto saxophone), Blue Mitchell (trumpet), George Benson (guitar), Lonnie Smith (organ), Idris Muhammad (drums)

Recorded

on March 15, 1968 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BST 84280 in 1968

Track listing

Side A:
Midnight Creeper
Love Power
Elizabeth
Side B:
Bag Of Jewels
Dapper Dan


Veteran Donaldson, who was influenced, as many or most were, by Charlie Parker and whose cooperations with Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey and Jimmy Smith date back to the late forties and early/mid-fifties, had a good hand in picking new breed cats in his mid-sixties soul jazz and late-sixties/early seventies jazz funk heyday. To name but a few: Grant Green, Big John Patton, Ben Dixon, Charles Earland, Melvin Sparks. The group of Midnight Creeper is of similar high standard.

One only has to take a listen to Bag Of Jewels to appreciate the rapport of George Benson & Co. The artistic merit of a simple vamp like this one, written by organist Lonnie Smith, lies in the protagonists’ groove-ability. The drive of the rhythm section of drummer Idris Muhammad (formerly Leo Morris) and Lonnie Smith is tremendous. The twangy chords of George Benson add body to the bottom. Lonnie Smith is a wholesale dealer in juicy funk and enigmatic surprises. Smith, on this album, shows that he had become one of the most original organists of his time.

Following Smith, the rest of the soloists – Blue Mitchell, George Benson and Lou Donaldson – bring a lot of jazz finesse to the otherwise basic vamp. Worth mentioning are Blue Mitchell’s skilled work and buoyant style, Benson’s clever yet spicy build-up from low to high register, Muhammad’s stimulating way of announcing soloists with crackling press rolls and, finally, Donaldson’s deceptively casual, logically evolving tale.

The signature tune, Midnight Creeper, is an easy-going groove, a mellow boogaloo. The title and bounce suggest the nocturnal journey of a greasy cat, but for me that lazy gait ignites visions of old geezers in the park, scuffling around a chess board and glancing from under their Panama hats to attractive women passing by. That, of course, is one of the beauties of music, that it creates a variety of feelings.

Donaldson shines brightly on ballads, and Elisabeth is no exception. Not only does Donaldson have chops in abundance, his tone is warm and penetrating and the way Donaldson wraps his arms around the melody is breathtaking.

The funky beat of Love Power is irresistable. It has a kind of Bo Diddley twist as well. Lou Donaldson’s comments bring about a playful, calypso feeling. George Benson delivers a skilled r&b section, including bent strings and slurs. In short, the cover of Teddy Vann’s tune – recorded by The Sandpebbles in 1967 – is a spicy stew.

The album Midnight Creeper is an appetizing melting pot as well. Lou Donaldson’s commercial jazz funk albums, even if not all of them are up to par with Midnight Creeper, include classic groove tunes that, I’ve always felt, have the vital function of keeping jazz accessible for newcomers into the jazz realm. At least it worked like that for me as well as a number of teenage buddies in the mid-nineties. Donaldson reminded us of the blues and soul music we were passionately involved with. Midnight Creeper and Lou Donaldson’s other boogaloo gems spelled: wow, this is jazz as well! We’re enjoying the ‘far out’ Coltrane and Monk, but let’s get low, down & dirty for a change! Yeah, let’s just.

Grant Green Grant’s First Stand (Blue Note 1961)

- Francois Leave a comment

By January, 1961, when Grant Green’s debut as a leader Grant’s First Stand was released, Green was 26 years old and already a seasoned player. His debut is confident and chock full of suave blues.

Grant Green - Grant's First Stand

Personnel

Grant Green (guitar), Baby Face Willette (organ), Ben Dixon (drums)

Recorded

on January 28, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BLP 4064 in 1961

Track listing

Side A:
Miss Ann’s Tempo
Lullaby Of The Leaves
Blues For Willareen
Side B:
Baby’s Minor Lope
’Tain’t Nobody’s Bizniss If I Do
A Wee Bit O’Green


Some colleagues and friends from the guitarist’s hometown, St. Louis, have said that before the time alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson secured him a deal at New York’s Blue Note headquarters in 1960, Green’s unique style was already intact. Musicians who traveled through the jazz and r&b-friendly East St. Louis also were enamoured of Green’s approach. Said drummer Al Harewood: “(…) before he got there, the club was packed. So Grant must have been doing something right. Oh, boy, it was swinging, swinging, swinging. He was fresh. (…) It was like a revival meeting. They well appreciated him, too. So did the fellas in New York, once they heard him.”

But was Green’s style really already fully-formed? Well, almost. It was mature, soulful, had a unique ring to it. But Green’s playing certainly underwent a few changes in the sixties. Playing in a variety of settings, with a roster of world-class young (and some older) lions, inspired Green to reach beyond his basic style in straight ahead as well as modal hard bop. Generally unbeatable and highly inventive, this period included career heights as Grandstand and Idle Moments. His funk period from the late sixties represented a direction into deep grooves and more percussive phrasing.

What they meant was that the core of Green’s style remained the same, whether the guitarist tackled gospel, Latin, modern jazz or blues music. Green’s unique assets are a lucid and round tone, fiery approach, melodic elan and abundant blues feeling. What those people who knew or met Green meant, was that Green was a man of the blues. Green felt very comfortable within the organ combo genre and made many fine recordings in it. After Green’s debut and initial side dates Green would become the most prolific musician in the Blue Note roster up to 1965. By 1962 Green had earned Downbeat Magazine’s New Star victory in the guitar category.

The trio of Grant’s First Stand had a nice rapport. It had worked together on Lou Donaldson’s Here ‘Tis a week earlier and would re-unite for Baby Face Willette’s debut as a leader, Face To Face, two days later. Not surprisingly, the three albums bear the mark and feeling of live r&b. Perhaps Grant’s First Stand is the most blues-drenched of the threesome.

Miss Ann’s Tempo is an example of excellent trio work. The playful theme of ascending and descending notes stated by Green is supported well through answering chords by Willette and effective cymbal and tom work by Ben Dixon. Green’s solo has a natural flow and logical structure. Baby Face Willette’s statements consist of probing, funky lines and poignant, short notes stabbed at the keyboard with the infectious joy of a bird let loose from his cage.

In building the solo of Baby’s Minor Lope – as the title states and suggests, a minor key blues that runs steadily on – Green uses his trademark sustained tremelos that work as a breath of fresh air before traveling on vigorously. In between the beforementioned and other like-minded mid to uptempo tunes are two slow blues songs. One of the most popular and recorded blues standards, Ain’t Nobody’s Business, has a solid but a bit subdued Green solo. It might’ve something to do with Baby Face Willette, who burns through an in-your-face solo that is hard to surpass. Wee Bit O’Green fares better. The slight change of beat creates a loose and down-home atmosphere Green relishes.

After Green’s debut, there would be no question of a ‘Wee Bit O’Green”. ‘A Whole Lot O’Green” is more appropriate. In 1961 alone, Green would not only appear as leader or sideman on a staggering number of seventeen (including five posthumously released) Blue Note recordings, but also record as a sideman for Jazztime, Jazzland and Prestige.

Baby Face Willette Face To Face (Blue Note 1961)

- Francois Leave a comment

It was a busy week for organist Baby Face Willette, the last week of January, 1961. In fact, the three sessions Willette was involved in – sessions for Lou Donaldson and Grant Green and the leadership date of Face to Face – account for half of the organist’s discography. One may conclude Willette is something of a footnote in jazz history. As his best album, Face To Face, however, proofs footnotes usually don’t come that exciting.

babyface

Personnel

Baby Face Willette (organ), Fred Jackson (tenor saxophone), Grant Green (guitar), Ben Dixon (drums)

Recorded

on January 30, 1961 at Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Released

as BST 84068 in 1961

Track listing

Side A:
Swingin’ At Sugar Ray’s
Goin’ Down
Whatever Lola Wants
Side B:
Face To Face
Something Strange
High ‘N’ Low


Lou Donaldson certainly was of that opinion. In reference to the session for Donaldson’s Here ’Tis, the popular alto saxophonist is quoted as saying (he also mentioned accompanists Grant Green and drummer Ben Dixon): “These guys have all played a lot of rhythm and blues and they know what it’s about.” Lou Donaldson brought Grant Green to the attention of Blue Note’s Alfred Lion in 1960. Green was steeped in r&b and influenced by Charlie Christian. Together they met Willette in New York. Before turning to jazz, Willette had worked in a variety of r&b settings. Tenor saxophonist Fred Jackson worked with Little Richard, B.B. King and had been part of r&b-singer Lloyd Price’s outfit. Drummer Ben Dixon also played in that group.

Here ’Tis stems from January 23, Grant Green’s Grant’s First Stand (also including Ben Dixon) was recorded on January 28 and the Face To Face-session took place on January 30. It indeed is about the blues or has a blues-based format. Willette penned five catchy originals. Willette’s edgy sound, a combination of a plucky percussion-setting and slight vibrato, is mesmerising. Style-wise Willette uses a number of tricks from Jimmy Smith’s bag. Putting heat into a solo, stretching over bars by way of a suspended left hand chord and freewheeling right hand, is one of them. He uses it in Whatever Lola Wants and Swingin’ At Sugar Ray’s. The latter is a sassy tune on which Grant Green gets into the picture with some trademark, throat-grabbing blues licks. His sound is unusually distorted on this tune, which unfortunately draws the attention away from the rest of his statements.

Willette does a great job of avoiding blues clichés. His lines are jumpy and fresh. Rarely at a dead end, one can hear the pleasure Willette takes in putting something surprising and funky in each new chorus. Willette carefully builds momentum on the slow, down & dirty blues Goin’ Down. Tenor saxophonist Fred Jackson delivers a juicy and humorous piece of rock ‘n’ jazz. His solo is lively, direct and consists of long wails that alternate with short, breathy puffs, valve effects and speedy, big-toned figures that bear the mark of Coleman Hawkins and Gene Ammons.

The title track, Face To Face, is an uptempo, stop-time tune cleanly executed by the rhythm section. (including the bass Willette provides) Ben Dixon lays down a driving shuffle in the middle section that finds all soloists in fine form. Whatever Lola Wants is the only non-Willette composition. It has a very danceable, exotic rhythm. Willette cooks, Jackson variates nicely on the theme; the element of surprise inherent in Jackson’s work is a strong asset of Face To Face. Green doesn’t really break out of his routine phrasing. Clearly, on Whatever Lola Wants, Fred Jackson’s got the better of him.

The album ends on a satisfying note. Something Strange and High ‘N’ Low aren’t standout tracks, but fine blues cuts. In the second part of his recording career – the 1964 albums Behind The 8-Ball and Mo-Roc for the Argo label – gospel and Carribean themes were highlighted more than on his Blue Note recordings. The albums show a full-grown identity and have their moments, but are inferior to Face To Face. They lack drive and the abilities of the high-quality personel that was present on Face To Face and his other Blue Note recording from 1961, Stop And Listen.

The liner notes of Face To Face refer to the wanderlust that had been characteristic of Willette’s personality ever since he was a kid. This penchant for traveling also accounted for his occasional disappearance from the scene and obscurity from the public eye after 1964. Ultimately, failing health led to his decease in 1971. Could Willette have been a new organ star contending with Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff? No doubt. Baby Face Willette had the chops, and the looks. Face To Face was a promising start. It, however, was also very short to the finish.

Brother Jack McDuff Moon Rappin’ (Blue Note 1969)

- Francois Leave a comment

Have you ever heard anybody rappin’ on the moon? It sounds really muffled, so the story goes.

Brother Jack McDuff - Moon Rappin'

Personnel

Brother Jack McDuff (organ), Jerry Byrd (guitar), Bill Phillips (tenor sax, flute), Unknown (baritone sax), Richard Davis (electric bass), Joe Dukes (drums)

Recorded

on December 1, 2, 3 & 11, 1969 at Soundview Recording Studio in Kings Park, NY

Released

as BST 84334 in 1969

Track listing

Side A:
Flat Backin’
Oblighetto
Side B:
Moon Rappin’
Made In Sweden
Loose Foot


Of course, the real story involves the Blue Note label’s policy circa 1969. “Brother” Jack McDuff’s Moon Rappin’ is just a wacky title of a wacky concept album. Included in the gatefold sleeve is a wacky poem about Brother Jack and Brother Moon. Although the album luckily doesn’t include equally wacky entertainment by McDuff, it nevertheless mostly consists of a travesty of McDuff’s typically earthy and churchy soul jazz style. That style is ostracised in favour of a series of mildly disappointing compositions characterised by a superficial sound too ‘rock’ for my taste. This kind of production might’ve satisfied a hip crowd, but because of that production the 4/4 time sections in between funky bookends sound rather clumsy. One almost feels sorry for drummer Joe Dukes, whose red hot, dynamic style blended so well with McDuff on mid-sixties recordings such as Hot Barbecue and Live!.

I have to admit the melody of the opening funk-blues tune Flat Backin’ easily nestled in my mind after a hide-out in my record cabinet for about seventeen years and continued to stay there for days on end. It is affective. McDuff succeeds to put pepper into his solo but lacks stimulation from his group. Punches of wah-wah guitar that would do well on a blaxploitation movie soundtrack fit right into the picture. But the only real highlight on Moon Rappin’, really, is the middle section of Oblighetto, wherein Joe Dukes finally lays down an exciting groove that seduces McDuff and group to partake in brittle and fiery exercises. Curiously, these sections start after a recurring series of Lorelei-like female vocal parts.

After the departure of Blue Note founder Alfred Lion, co-founder Francis Wolff produced a string of both artistically and commercially succesful groove-oriented albums in the late sixties and around 1970 by, among others, Lonnie Smith, Grant Green, Reuben Wilson and Lou Donaldson. Smith’s Move Your Hand, Green’s Green Is Beautiful, Reuben Wilson’s Love Bug and Lou Donaldson’s Midnight Creeper are cases in point. Moon Rappin’ doesn’t belong to that league of expert jazz funk recordings. “Brother” Jack McDuff strayed too far from his r&b and church grounds to deliver a really satisfying album in this genre.

Grant Green Street Of Dreams (Blue Note 1964)

- Francois Leave a comment

I can’t get enough of Grant Green’s opening tune I Wish You Love from the guitarist’s mid-career album Street Of Dreams. It’s the epitome of Green’s ethereal qualities and works on an emotionally soothing level only true masters can bring about.

Grant Green - Street Of Dreams

Personnel

Grant Green (guitar), Larry Young (organ), Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Elvin Jones (drums)

Recorded

on November 16, 1964 at Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey

Released

as BLP 4253 in 1965

Track listing

Side A:
I Wish You Love
Lazy Afternoon
Side B:
Street Of Dreams
Somewhere In The Night


Mid-career? Indeed, I define the album as such. Although Green recorded until his death in 1979, it’s fair to say that the seventies were disappointing for Green and that the relevant part of his career runs from his start in 1960 to the beginning of the following decade. Moreover, Green practically lived in the studio in the early sixties, mostly as solo and staff guitarist for Blue Note. Nobody did so much sessions for the famous label as Green, and certainly not between 1960 and 1965. Hence said stipulation that Street Of Dreams is a mid-career effort.

During that period, Green had struck up a fruitful recording relationship with organist Larry Young and drummer Elvin Jones. Elvin Jones is on a string of Grant Green albums, among them Matador. Naturally, Jones took part in recording Larry Young’s masterpiece Unity. The trio furthermore cooperate on a couple of ace Blue Note albums: Grant Green’s Talkin’ About and I Want To Hold Your Hand and Larry Young’s Into Something.

Street Of Dreams certainly is an ace album as well and evidence of how well the famed members of this group – augmented to a quartet by vibrafonist Bobby Hutcherson, who played on essential Green album Idle Moments – respond to eachother. Street Of Dreams and Somewhere In The Night are easygoing swingers including fluid solo’s by Green and Young, but the standout tracks are to be found on side A. Lazy Afternoon is a slow, mellow standard which charm lies in the combination between its harmonic subtleties and Green’s blues-infused playing style.

Both Lazy Afternoon and I Wish You Love benefit from the polyrhythmic finesse and tension-building of one-man band Elvin Jones, Larry Young’s economical, full-bodied backing and adventurous phrases and Hutcherson’s moody embellishments. In front of this crackerjack trio, Grant Green reaches bittersweet heights in I Wish You Love, which originally was a chanson from French singer Charles Trenet. There is so much to enjoy: a deceptively simple, patiently executed, beautiful melody and a memorable solo that constitutes nearly five minutes of sheer beauty. Then there’s that delicious sustain of Green’s Gibson guitar that must surely do an ‘embraceable you’ to you too. Green’s stately delivery of I Wish You Love never fails to bring me into a sweet and sour, ephemereal state of mind.

Street Of Dreams is a carefully constructed affair. From the front cover – an apt picture and illustration by Reid Miles of the intersection Grant Avenue & Green Street in San Francisco – via repertoire and titles to Green’s performance, it’s obvious that the album’s target is a soft spot in the heart. It certainly hits home. As one of many top class albums in Green’s book, I think Street Of Dreams will satisfy jazz fans that are charmed by the guitarist’s better known Idle Moments.