Grant Green

Street of Dreams brings together Grant Green, Larry Young and Elvin Jones, the guitar, organ and drums trio that had first met on Green's Talkin' About in 1964. Here they add Bobby Hutcherson on vibraphone. The result is one of the quietest, most atmospheric records in Green's Blue Note catalogue, four long and slow treatments of songs from outside the usual jazz repertoire.

The quartet recorded the album at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, on November 16, 1964, with Rudy Van Gelder engineering. That was two months after Talkin' About. Blue Note held the tapes back, and the record was only released in 1967, with liner notes by Leonard Feather. There is no bass player. Young's organ covers the low end, and Hutcherson's vibes sit between guitar and organ with soft, ringing chords.

The choice of material is unusual. I Wish You Love is the English version of Charles Trenet's Que reste-t-il de nos amours?, given a slow, lyrical reading built on Green's clean single-note lines. Lazy Afternoon comes from a Broadway musical and stretches out over nearly eight minutes at a drowsy tempo. The title song is a standard by Victor Young and Sam M. Lewis. Somewhere in the Night, a television theme by Billy May, closes the album in the same hushed, nocturnal register.

The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (2008) gives the album its top rating of four stars. It calls it "Another exceptional record" and praises the contributions of Young and Hutcherson. Writing for All About Jazz, Chris May heard it as closer to a blowing session than the more arranged Idle Moments. DownBeat, reviewing it in November 1967, was cooler and gave it three stars.

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl edition (2026) is stereo and all-analogue, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.