Lee Morgan's Search for the New Land: Superb Hard-Bop From 1966

When someone asks me: What's the best Lee Morgan (1937-1972) album? Typically they expect The Sidewinder answer to come out of my mouth.

I can certainly agree, that album is one of the best, and perhaps even equal to my favorite:

Search For the New Land:

A sextet album recorded in 1964 but released 2 years later, and yes it does sport a stone classic jazz line up:

Lee Morgan on trumpet, Herbie Hancock on piano, Wayne Shorter on tenor sax, the underrated Reggie Workman on bass, the superb Billy Higgins on drums, and for my money, the best jazz guitarist of them all Grant Green.

I love the solo Grant takes on the title track, the track is well worth the 15 minutes. Green's solo happens at the 9:15 mark if you listen to the video below.

Hearing the solo in context with the other great solos from Morgan, Shorter, and Hancock is what drives the point home, wow the clean no-B.S. sound is what sets green apart in my opinion.

When I see a Blue Note with Grant Green as a side man, I know it will be a good session.  I know Green will contribute something worthwhile for my ears.

The centerpiece of the album is of course the title track, but believe me there are plenty of reasons to like the album. "Mr. Kenyatta" is nice tune, darned if Green doesn't kick butt again. I love the urgency of the track.

Lee delivers one of my favorite fiery solos on the track "see below", he really digs in on the track stretching the boundaries, the theme on "Mr Kenyatta" is really inventive hard-bop. This album in my opinion is the pinnacle of where hard-bop could go before going out side to the avant-garde.

The Ballad "Melancholee" seems like a Wayne Shorter vehicle, or least that Wayne was in Lee Morgan's mind when it was written. Wayne's playing and the composition has this enigmatic quality to it. I wonder if that would be the same if Joe Henderson was in the tenor spot?

"Morgan the Pirate" is another great advanced hard-bop tune, Shorter and Green do their thing again. These guys were so in the zone in 1964, they were all fresh and creative, pushing themselves beyond where anyone could have conceived the music from a contemporary perspective. I can certainly see why Shorter and Hancock went the fusion route later on by the end of the decade.

 Listen to this record, or any of Herbie, Wayne, or Lee's other records of the 63-67 period, what else can you do inside the bop/hard-bop tradition?

The logical place would be to go to other styles like world music and popular music for inspiration...and ultimately the use of electronic instruments is what they did.

Search For the New Land is certainly one of the best hard-bop records I have ever heard, and fits nicely inside the post bop sub-genre, though the music never becomes too high-brow for the less than well healed jazz aficionado.

Grant Green's Green Street: Jazz Guitar Every Guitarist Should Hear

 In recent years Grant Green has finally begun to see the type of accolades he should have enjoyed when he was alive.

More than any other guitarist, Grant Green Speaks to me, and Green Street speaks volumes.

Grant has a simple Charlie Christian influenced single note style that always seems to cut through the mix.

Miraculously Grant doesn't take a back seat to stone classic trumpet and saxophonists he's sparred with, he always stands toe-to-toe.

 I read that George Benson said Grant realized his tone by minimizing the bass and treble, and then maximizing the mid range.

Whether sparring with the likes of saxophonist Wayne Shorter, or organist Larry Young, Grant was simply one of the best and never failed to add something the any date he was a part of. Green's album Idle Moments is one the best Blue Notes of 60's period, and albums like Street of Dreams have always been underrated as well.

 Green Street though is pretty highly thought of by fellow guitar-men: A crisp and clean trio session with Green on guitar,  Ben Tucker on bass, and Dave Bailey on drums. Hard to imagine a better guitar trio album from any genre, Green has nowhere to hide, it's just his guitar and nothing else to rely on.

Green Street is a nice chill out record too, this particular vinyl copy from around 1970 sounds stupendous to me:  Deep natural bass and crisply played drums. Grant's single picked notes ring true throughout, the tone he displays mentioned above does indeed jump out with out being overly effects driven.

Green passed away on January 31st 1979 at the age of 43.  If you are a guitar player from another genre outside of jazz, and need one jazz guitarist to check out, Grant Green is the guy.