Faulty Shades Of Green - Grant Green 80th Birthday Tribute

About this event

NIGEL MOONEY’S ORGAN TRIO featuring SPECIAL GUEST GUITARISTS, JIM MULLEN (UK) AND HUGH BUCKLEY.

Grant Green, (born 6/6/35), legendary Blue Note jazz guitarist and considered by many to be the “father of acid jazz”, would have turned 80 on the 6th of June this year. In celebration of the event, Irish jazz guitarist and singer Nigel Mooney, who acknowledges Green as a major influence, will be performing a series of concerts with organ and drums and a fantastic three-guitar front-line featuring Mooney himself, his old pal Hugh Buckley, and a very special guest, the great Jim Mullen.

GRANT GREEN.

Grant Green, born 6th of June, 1935, in St. Louis, Missouri, is a major influence on many jazz guitarists today, most notably George Benson. Green himself was influenced by Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker and played a bluesy, linear style that was distinctive and uncomplicated. From 1960 to 1966, he was house guitarist for Blue Note records and is the single most-recorded artist on that label, recording as leader or sideman with Herbie Hancock, Stanley Turrentine, McCoy Tyner, Lou Donaldson, Lee Morgan, Hank Mobley, Jimmy Smith and many more. During the late ‘sixties, a changing record industry and heroin problems meant Green went somewhat underground, but by 1970 he had re-emerged with his trademark guitar sound and an instrumental take on the funk and dance music of James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone, Kool and the Gang and The Isley Brothers. Green died on the 31st of January, 1979, but during the eighties and nineties his music was rediscovered by a new generation of multi-million selling acts like US3, Public Enemy and A Tribe Called Quest and his guitar licks like “Sookie Sookie” were sampled by the acid-jazz movement and became break-beat and dance-floor hits once again.

Green recorded many notable albums with Hammond organ and drums, and it is with organ trio plus guest guitarists Jim Mullen and Hugh Buckley that Nigel Mooney has chosen to pay a birthday tribute to the great Grant Green.

(Musician’s profiles and tour dates below.)

JIM MULLEN – guitar.

Jim Mullen, U.K. jazz guitarist of the year 2014, was born in Glasgow in 1945. In 1969, he moved to London and worked with Vinegar Joe and Brian Auger’s Oblivion Express, before joining The Average White Band, who had a worldwide hit with “Pick Up the Pieces” which was a major influence on the likes of The Brand New Heavies and, like Grant Green’s records, was sampled by the acid-jazz movement, The Beastie Boys, Ice Cube and A Tribe Called Quest. While with A.W.B., Jim met English tenor-saxophonist Dick Morrissey and formed the seminal British jazz funk outfit, Morrissey Mullen. Influenced by such guitarists as Grant Green and Wes Montgomery, Jim uses the latter’s thumb-picking style. He has worked with Percy Sledge, Jimmy Witherspoon, Jimmy Smith, Mose Allison, Georgie Fame, Terry Callier and many more, and has won Best U.K. Jazz Guitarist awards in 1994, 1996, 2000, 2002 and 2014.

NIGEL MOONEY – guitar and vocals.

Hailed by the B.B.C. as “Ireland’s King of the Blues”, Nigel Mooney has been a leading player on the Irish jazz and blues scenes since his Gripewater Blues Band opened for B.B. King in the mid-nineteen eighties. Playing or singing the blues with bebop and Grant Green influences, Mooney is equally comfortable applying his blue’n’green tones to the jazz standards of the great American songbook. His 2013 released album, “The Bohemian Mooney”, which featured guest appearances by Georgie Fame and Louis Stewart, was awarded Irish Times Jazz Album of the Year and was “record of the week” on R.T.E. He has recently toured in the U.S.A., performed in The Royal Albert Hall and is currently working on a new album.

HUGH BUCKLEY – guitar.

Dubliner Hugh Buckley is long established as one of the finest jazz guitarists on the Irish scene. He has worked and recorded with many great international jazz artists, including James Williams, Brad Mehldau and Peter Bernstein. Influenced by Grant Green and Wes Montgomery amongst others, Hugh has led Dublin’s longest-running quintet, Isotope, with cousin Richie, for more years than he is able to remember. His book, “The Guitar Chord Doctor” is a must for every jazz guitar student.

SCOTT FLANIGAN – organ.

Pianist and organist Scott Flanigan is one of Ireland’s top keyboard specialists and is a master of many styles. He is a regular member of Van Morrison’s band and is equally at home playing Chopin with The Ulster Orchestra or grooving the Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff Hammond-B3 styles with Nigel Mooney’s Organ Trio.

DOMINIC MULLAN – drums.

Dominic Mullan is Ireland’s leading jazz drummer and plays with many of the major jazz acts on the Irish scene including Nigel Mooney’s quartet and organ trio, The Johnny Taylor trio, Mary Coughlan,ÂÂ Emily Conway and many more…