Grant Green – I Want To Hold Your Hand: Blue Note Tone Poet Series (180g Vinyl LP)

All-Analog 180g Vinyl LP of Grant Green’s I Want To Hold Your Hand. Mastered From the Original Master Tapes by Kevin Gray & Pressed at RTI: Reference-Caliber Blue Note Reissue Helmed by Music Matters’ Joe Harley.

The trio of guitarist Grant Green, organist Larry Young, and drummer Elvin Jones had a unique alchemy from the first time they got together on Green’s 1964 album Talkin’ About. A couple months later the trio reconvened as a quartet with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson to record Street of Dreams. For 1965’s I Want To Hold Your Hand they subtly changed their palette again by adding tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley into the mix. The result was another simmering set imbued with sophisticated soul. The quartet elevates a collection of well-known songs with their easy-going elegance from a surprisingly successful bossa reinvention of the title track by The Beatles to the bona fide bossa nova classic “Corcovado” by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The set also includes unforgettable renditions of standards including Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low,” Victor Young’s “Stella By Starlight,” and Cole Porter’s “At Long Last Love.” I Want To Hold Your Hand capped off an extraordinarily prolific 5-year run for Green that saw him record more than 20 hard bop and soul jazz sessions for Blue Note. When the guitarist returned to the label in 1969 his style had evolved into the jazz-funk that would characterize his late career.

Side A:

1. I Want To Hold Your Hand
2. Speak Low
3. Stella By Starlight

Side B:

1. Corcovado
2. This Could Be The Start Of Something
3. At Long Last Love