Grant Green: Feelin’ The Spirit (Blue Note Tone Poet Series) LP

Blue Note, 1963

Grant Green was Feelin’ The Spirit on this deeply soulful 1962 date that is a sibling of sorts to the great guitarist’s sanctified 1961 album Sunday Mornin’. Feelin’ The Spirit, which was the 13th album the remarkably prolific artist recorded during his first two years on the label, found Green interpreting a set of five African American spirituals —“Just A Closer Walk With Thee,” “Joshua Fit The Battle Of Jericho,” “Nobody Knows The Trouble I’ve Seen,” “Go Down Moses,” “Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child,” and “Deep River.” Joining him was a state-of-the-art modern jazz line-up featuring Herbie Hancock on piano, Butch Warren on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums, with Garvin Masseaux on tambourine. In the original liner notes, writer Joe Goldberg notes that Green approaches these songs “with affection, but as music to be played in his style. The result is a fascinating combination: the techniques of modern jazz, blues, and gospel, all applied to the spiritual.”