Jazz Articles about Johnny Griffin

About Johnny Griffin

Album Review

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers: Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (Deluxe Edition)

Read "Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (Deluxe Edition)" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
May 9, 2022

Rhino's new series of reissues of historic albums from the late 1950s/early 1960s hit the ground running in 2020 with John Coltrane's Giant Steps (Atlantic, 1960). Spring 2022 has already seen Charles Mingus' Trio (Jubilee, 1957) and Coltrane's My Favorite Things (Atlantic, 1961). Hot on their heels comes Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers With Thelonious Monk (Alantic, 1958). Each reissue is a double disc. Disc one contains the original album. Disc two comprises outtakes, some previously ...

Album Review

Wes Montgomery: The NDR Hamburg Studio Recordings

Read "The NDR Hamburg Studio Recordings" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
March 5, 2021

Recorded in spring 1965, during Wes Montgomery's sole European tour, The NDR Hamburg Studio Recordings presents the guitarist as part of an all-star international octet assembled for a one-off appearance on German television station NDR. The programme was part of a series presenting musicians who did not regularly work together in informal “rehearsal" performances. Montgomery's tour, on which he appeared with both his own quartet and local rhythm sections, has been well documented on official and unofficial recordings. But this ...

Radio & Podcasts

The Chicago Sound (1956 - 1961)

by Russell Perry
July 16, 2019

Because it acted as a safe harbor for the New Orleans diaspora of the teens and twenties, Chicago played a key role in early jazz. By the 1950s, much of jazz was understood in the dialog between cool jazz and hard bop, aka West Coast and East Coast, with Los Angeles and New York playing inordinately important roles. But the Chicago scene was as vital as ever. In this hour, we will return to the “City with Broad Shoulders" and ...

Album Review

Johnny Griffin: At Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall

Read "At Onkel Pö's Carnegie Hall" reviewed by Stefano Merighi

by Stefano Merighi
May 3, 2018

Quando queste tracce vengono registrate ad Amburgo, nel 1975, il jazz è forse nel suo momento più critico, abbandonato da ampie fette di pubblico, sedotto o dalla più muscolare fusion o dal rock progressivo. A dispetto della nascita di decine di nuove formazioni e dell'incremento delle produzioni discografiche, specie negli Usa si era perso quel senso della comunità jazzistica che ne aveva garantito l'umanesimo. Sopravviveva nell'ambito della free music, con un pubblico però esiguo. In termini generalisti, si andava verso ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Johnny Griffin: The Congregation – 1957

by Marc Davis
June 20, 2016

Well, this is a disappointment. Johnny Griffin is widely regarded as one of the fastest sax players in jazz history. His reputation began with his very first album, Blue Note's Introducing Johnny Griffin in 1956. He solidified his rep the next year with a frantic three-sax attack on A Blowin' Session with John Coltrane and Hank Mobley. So maybe it's not a huge surprise that Griffin wanted to try something different a few months later, in ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Johnny Griffin: A Blowin' Session – Blue Note 1559

by Marc Davis
January 27, 2015

Sometimes dumb luck makes all the difference. That's the case with Johnny Griffin's A Blowin' Session. If you're a sax fan, this one's for you--not one, not two, but three red-hot tenors, plus one scorching trumpet, and the legendary Art Blakey smashing the drums behind them. Three tenors? How did that happen? Pure serendipity. Johnny Griffin, the young, new, super-fast saxman, was on his way to record at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey one ...

My Blue Note Obsession

Introducing Johnny Griffin – Blue Note 1533

by Marc Davis
October 22, 2014

In jazz and rock--heck, even in classical music--there is a sacred throne for those who play fast. Dizzy Gillespie and Oscar Peterson occupy such thrones. So do Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. Fast is fun. Johnny Griffin played fast--very fast. The evidence is here in Griffin's very first album, Introducing Johnny Griffin. It's a 1956 date with a quartet that includes Wynton Kelly on piano, Curly Russell on bass and Max Roach on drums. For ...