Live at Club Mozambique

Between two rollicking live albums cut some twenty months apart (Alive! and Live at the Lighthouse), Blue Note wasn’t quite sure to do with yet another Grant Green live album from that same time (January 1971), shelving the tapes recorded at Detroit’s Live at Club Mozambique until the 21st century. So why check out a third set now? It’s a chance to hear Green playing for his adopted hometown of Detroit, with Green foregrounding the grit and blues of his soul-funk guitar style. And at the end of the working week, band and crowd alike are ready to get down. With a rhythm section including the relentless pocket of Idris Muhammed and organist Ronnie Foster, the sweat and booze keeps flowing. There’s tough, joyous reads of the R&B hits of the day (“Walk on By,” “Patches,” and “One More Chance”) and mesmerizing groovers like “Jan Jan” and “Farid.” A recent vinyl reissue from Third Man highlights the blue collar jazz sound that defined Detroit in the era.