1. “Grantstand,” Grant Green, from Grantstand (1962)

​Grant Green was known as a traditional hard bop and soul jazz player; his records took a turn toward extra amplification at the end of the ‘60s, but he was otherwise remarkably consistent in his choices. Aside from the occasional detour into bossa nova (see The Latin Bit, recorded with Afro-Cuban Jazz drummer Willie Bobo and including the sounds of congas and chekere) his playing style throughout his career remained steeped in blues and R&B. He treated guitar as a lead instrument, eschewing chords and preferring single-note melodic lines—possibly because his main influences were not guitarists but horn players, including Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Joe Henderson.
 
Green was a mainstay for Blue Note records, recording more than 20 albums as a bandleader from 1961–65 and many more as a sideman, appearing in sessions with Hank Mobley, Herbie Hancock, and McCoy Tyner. Yet despite his prodigious output and distinctive phrasing, Green was largely underappreciated during his lifetime and generally regarded as a utility player, not a star.
 
"Grantstand" is the title track for an album recorded for Blue Note in 1961 and released the following year. It’s the earliest recording in this mix, and it demonstrates how players coming out of the 1950s hard bop scene brought other forms of dance-oriented music into jazz. Not only that: With the popularity of R&B organ trios in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, and the prolific recorded output of organists like Jimmy Smith and Shirley Scott, jazz sessions routinely included electrified instruments—in this case, “Brother” Jack McDuff’s Hammond B3—long before “going electric” became a cause for alarm among some music purists.