Alive! (Grant Green album) explained

Alive!
Type:Live album
Artist:Grant Green
Cover:Alive! (Grant Green album).jpg
Released:1970
Recorded:August 15, 1970
Venue:Cliche Lounge, Newark, New Jersey
Genre:Jazz-funk
Length:36:45
Label:Blue Note
Producer:Francis Wolff
Chronology:Grant Green
Prev Title:Green Is Beautiful
Prev Year:1970
Next Title:Live at Club Mozambique
Next Year:1971

Alive! is an album by American jazz guitarist Grant Green featuring a performance recorded at the Cliche Lounge in Newark, New Jersey in 1970 and released on the Blue Note label.[1] The album was Green's first official live recording. The CD reissue in 1993 added three bonus tracks.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Steve Huey awarded the album 4 stars and stated "Alive! is the hardest funk LP Grant Green recorded during the later phase of his career... this is the most convincing and consistent Green had been as a funkster and, while nearly all of his albums from the early '70s feature at least some worthwhile material for acid jazz and beat-sampling junkies, Alive! is probably the best place to start".[2]

"The Penguin Guide to Jazz" review by Richard Cook and Brian Morton stated: "It seems remarkable that Blue Note weren't more enthusiastic sooner about recording Green in his natural setting. This, from the Cliché Lounge in Newark, is almost his best recording for the label, a burning, sweaty club that might rely a bit on the very commodity it was named for, but none the worse of that."

Track listing

  1. "Let the Music Take Your Mind" (Kool & the Gang, Gene Redd) - 8:42
  2. "Time To Remember" (Neal Creque) - 11:19
  3. Band introduction by Buddy Green - 0:32
  4. "Sookie, Sookie" (Don Covay, Steve Cropper) - 11:10
  5. "Down Here on the Ground" (Gale Garnett, Lalo Schifrin) - 6:45

Bonus tracks on CD reissue:

  1. "Hey, Western Union Man" (Jerry Butler, Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff) - 7:46
  2. "It's Your Thing" (Ronald Isley, O'Kelly Isley, Jr., Rudolph Isley) - 9:17
  3. "Maiden Voyage" (Herbie Hancock) - 10:58

Personnel

Notes and References

  1. http://www.jazzdisco.org/grant-green/catalog/#blue-note-bst-84360 Grant Green discography
  2. Huey, S. [{{AllMusic|class=album|id=r192009|pure_url=yes}} Allmusic Review] accessed September 17, 2010