StLJN Audio Archive: Grant Green - Visions

Fortunately for fans of jazz guitar, much of Grant Green's output for the Blue Note label in the 1960s and 1970s remains in print today. One exception, though, seems to be Visions, a 1971 session that featured the St. Louis native's versions of some then-current pop hits along with a couple of originals and one classical piece.

Vinyl copies are scarce, as you'd expect for a 40-year old recording that probably got just one pressing back then. There apparently was a CD reissue a few years back that now is out of print too, with used copies fetching as much $85 online as of this writing. And so far, the powers-that-be don't seem even to have made the album available as a digital download.

That scarcity, plus the renewed interest in Green's music in recent years, would seem to make Visions (pictured) a good candidate for the network of music sharing blogs - and once again, fortune has smiled on guitar fans, for the proprietor of a site called Lost In Tyme has preserved the session online for all to enjoy.

Stylistically, the laid-back Visions definitely is a departure from Green's usual tendencies toward hard bop, blues and funk but, accompanied by a band featuring Chuck Rainey on bass and Idris Muhammad on drums, he manages to find something interesting in most of the tunes. The track listing includes "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?" "Maybe Tomorrow," "Mozart Symphony #40 In G Minor, K550, 1st Movement," "Love On A Two Way Street," "Cantaloupe Woman," "We've Only Just Begun," "Never Can Say Goodbye" and "Blues For Abraham."

To download a free copy of Grant Green's Visions, go to the original blog post referenced above and scroll down to where it says "Get It Here." Click on one of the links immediately below that and follow the instructions. (For more on .rar files and how to use them, see this.)

The StLJN Audio Archive links only to recordings that are out-of-print or that never have been commercially available. The purpose of the Audio Archive is to encourage discussion, appreciation and knowledge of St. Louis jazz artists, and we urge you to support them (or their estates) by purchasing authorized recordings and merchandise and, whenever possible, attending live performances.

(Edited 1/29/12 to add the disclaimer paragraph.)