Certain classic Blue Note recordings do not age as well as others and this is an example. Early in his career Grant Green had his lyrical ‘singing’ tone together combined with a pleasing single-string line that combined hip neo-bop fluency with a blues sensibility. Chordwise, however, his guitar technique was nowhere near strong enough to sustain the guitar-bass-drums format used here. Just consider what Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery were doing at this period.

Funky as his phrasing is on versions of ‘Alone Together’, ‘Green With Envy’ (a curious theme which sounds like a half-learned version of Horace Silver's difficult standard ‘Ecaroh’) and ‘Round Midnight’, Green's solos sound painfully thin without chordal support. It is quite a relief when an uncredited pianist and tenorist join the trio for ‘Falling in Love’ and two other tracks.

Neither is up to Green's class as a soloist, however, so it's doubtful whether they are Sonny Clark and Tina Brooks, two busy stablemates of Green's during this period. My guess would be Billy Gardner and Frank Haynes, who had taped the Green Blues album with his same trio not long earlier. Hopefully the boys at Groove Hut will take the trouble to identify these players in later editions. Collectors frown on this sort of thing, y’know.