Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was an American jazz guitarist and composer.
A severely underrated player during his lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz guitar. He combined an extensive foundation in R&B with a mastery of bebop and simplicity that put expressiveness ahead of technical expertise. Green was a superb blues interpreter, and while his later material was predominantly blues and R&B, he was also a wondrous ballad and standards soloist. He was a particular admirer of Charlie Parker, and his phrasing often reflected it.
Grant Green was born on June 6, 1935 in St. Louis, Missouri to John and Martha Green. His father was at various times a labourer and a Saint Louis policeman. Green first performed in a professional setting at the age of 13 as a member of a gospel music ensemble. His influences were Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Jimmy Raney, he first played boogie-woogie before moving on to jazz.
His first recordings in St. Louis were with tenor saxophonist Jimmy Forrest for the United label, where Green played alongside drummer Elvin Jones. Green recorded with Jones for several albums in the mid-1960s. In 1959, Lou Donaldson discovered Green playing in a bar in St. Louis hired him for his touring band. Green moved to New York at some point during 1959–60. Green told Dan Morgenstern in a Down Beat interview: "The first thing I learned to play was boogie-woogie. Then I had to do a lot of rock & roll. It's all blues, anyhow."
From 1961 to 1965, Green made more appearances on Blue Note LPs, as leader or sideman, than anyone else. Green's first issued album as a leader was Grant's First Stand. This was followed in the same year by Green Street and Grantstand. Grant was named best new star in the Down Beat critics' poll, in 1962. Sunday Mornin' , The Latin Bit and Feelin' the Spirit are all loose concept albums, each taking a musical theme or style: gospel, Latin and spirituals respectively. Grant always carried off his more commercial dates with artistic success during this period. Idle Moments (1963), featuring Joe Henderson and Bobby Hutcherson, and Solid (1964), are described by professional jazz critics as two of Green's best recordings.
He often provided support to the other important musicians on Blue Note, including saxophonists Hank Mobley, Ike Quebec, Stanley Turrentine and organist Larry Young. Although he mentions Charlie Christian and Jimmy Raney as influences, Green always claimed he listened to horn players (Charlie Parker and Miles Davis) and not other guitar players, and it shows. No other player has this kind of single-note linearity (he avoids chordal playing). He thus rarely played rhythm guitar except as a sideman on albums led by other musicians.
There is very little of the intellectual element in Green's playing, and his technique is always at the service of his music. And it is music, plain and simple, that makes Green unique.
In 1966 Green left Blue Note and recorded for several other labels, including Verve. From 1967 to 1969 Green was, for the most part, inactive due to personal problems and the effects of heroin addiction. In 1969 Green returned with a new funk-influenced band. His recordings from this period include the commercially successful Green Is Beautiful and the soundtrack to the film The Final Comedown.
Green left Blue Note again in 1974 and the subsequent recordings he made with other labels divide opinion: some consider Green to have been the 'Father of Acid Jazz' (and his late recordings have been sampled by artists including US3, A Tribe Called Quest and Public Enemy), while others have dismissed them. Despite some rather uneven LPs near the end of his career, the great body of his work represents marvelous soul-jazz, bebop, and blues.
Green recorded his last album, Easy, in April of 1978. That autumn he had a minor stroke that left him temporarily paralyzed on his left side. A blood clot was found near his heart and the doctors ordered triple-bypass surgery, but Green refused. Instead, he drove across the country for a gig in California. After the long drive back to New York, he suffered a heart attack and died on the way to Harlem Hospital on January 31, 1979. He was 43. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri.,
Green's playing is immediately recognizable -- perhaps more than any other guitarist. Green has been almost systematically ignored by jazz buffs with a bent to the cool side, and he has only recently begun to be appreciated for his incredible musicality. Perhaps no guitarist has ever handled standards and ballads with the brilliance of Grant Green.
(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)