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Where to start.
A path through the catalog, not a top-seven ranking. Seven records, ordered for a first listen. Each one takes the same idea from a different angle. Start at the top and move on when you're ready.
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- 01Extension — 1964 (released 1967), Blue Note
The Blue Note years in one record. Organ-combo groove, post-bop reach, the double-horn idea, all in the same room at the same time.
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- 02Two Souls In One — 1963, Blue Note
The debut, and a way to hear the original problem in his hands. Grant Green and Billy Gardner are tight behind him from bar one.
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- 03Soul Stream — 1963 (released 1964), Blue Note
The album where the writing comes forward. Even a hedging contemporary review stopped to credit him as a composer.
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- 04Laughing Soul — 1966, Prestige
Earthier, heavier than the Blue Note dates. Big John Patton on organ, Grant Green on guitar, congas in the mix. The harmonic ideas inside a wider, more physical band.
- 05Musart — 1966–67 (released 1967), Prestige
The most open and modal of the 1960s records. He called it "a concert in miniature" in his own liner notes, and that holds up.
- 06Blue John — John Patton's date, recorded 1963, released 1986, Blue Note
Braith on soprano and stritch. Same Grant Green, different point of view, and some of the most direct playing he laid down in the 1960s.
- 07New York Soul — 2021, Excellence Records
On Spotify. Come here last, or first if you want to know where things stand now.
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