1970 · Album
Alive!
Recorded 1970 at the Cliché Lounge, Newark, New Jersey · Blue Note · First official live recording: Yes
Funk in a Newark club, no apologies
Green at his funkiest, recorded live where he belonged—sweating it out in front of a real audience.
By 1970, Grant Green had already made dozens of albums for Blue Note, working through hard bop, soul jazz, organ trio dates, and whatever else the label asked of him. Alive! captures him at the Cliché Lounge in Newark, a club that sounds exactly like its name suggests—not fancy, not pretentious, just a place where people came to hear music and have drinks. This was his first official live recording, and it matters because you can hear the difference. The energy here is different from the studio sessions. There's sweat in it. Green was moving deeper into funk by this point in his career, and this is where that direction sounds most natural and least forced. He was not a funkster by training—he came up playing bebop and modal jazz—but he clearly wanted to be in this groove, and the club setting lets you feel that commitment rather than just hear it as a stylistic choice on a record.
What makes this album worth hearing is that Green doesn't half-step it. He commits. AllMusic reviewer Steve Huey gave it four stars and called it "the hardest funk LP Grant Green recorded during the later phase of his career" and "probably the best place to start" if you want to understand what Green was doing in the early '70s. The Penguin Guide to Jazz noted that it was "almost his best recording for the label," which is higher praise than it sounds—this was a prolific artist with a strong catalog. The playing is tight, the grooves lock, and there's no sense that Green is slumming or experimenting on a dare. He sounds like he knows exactly what he's doing and why.
If you come to Grant Green through his organ trio work or his straight-ahead hard bop records, this album will feel like a left turn. If you're curious about what he was reaching for in the final stretch of his career, this is the most direct answer he gave. The 1993 CD reissue added three bonus tracks, giving you more of what works here. It's not the record to play if you want to hear Green at his most versatile or his most innovative, but if you want to hear him commit fully to a groove and a moment, this is the one.
Who's playing
Grant Greenguitar
Claude Barteetenor saxophone
Ronnie Fosterorgan
Neal Crequeorgan
Idris Muhammaddrums
Joseph Armstrongcongas
Willie Bivensvibraphone
Where next?
More by Grant Green
All 38 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
