C&L's Late Nite Music Club with Johnny Griffin: R.I.P
Johnny Griffin dies and the Saxophone Gods weep. We lost another Jazz Legend. He just smoked. Please support every great Jazz Master that you can. Going to a live show in a small club is simply heaven.
Johnny Griffin, a tenor saxophonist from Chicago whose speed, control and harmonic acuity made him one of the most talented American jazz musicians of his generation yet who spent most of his career in Europe, died Friday at his home in Availles-Limouzine, a village in France. He was 80 and had lived there for 24 years...
Mr. Griffin's modest height earned him the nickname the Little Giant; his speed in bebop improvising marked him as the Fastest Gun in the West; a group he led with his fellow saxophonist Eddie (Lockjaw) Davis was informally called the Tough Tenor band, a designation that was eventually applied to a whole school of hard-bop tenor players...read on
I like how you find and post long clips. This guy is the business. Sorry he's gone. I used to work in a small jazz club and attended many back in the day. There's nothing like sitting that close to someone engaged in music making.
Thanks, John, for paying homage to a musical giant and a very beautiful soul.
This is a good one too.
Johnny Griffin (2/2) - "A Monk's Dream"
i was over at newsvine where i found a link (fox, of course http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/26/obama-longs-for-thinking-time-in...) to a transcript of a "private" conversation between obama and tory leader david cameron in london.
one of the things obama is reported to have said is: ... "the most important thing you need to do is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking."
who wants to put money that mccain is not going to come out hotly against taking time out during the day to do some thinking?
He was an artist. I saw him once over thirty years ago.
John,
Do you know of any small clubs in the San Francisco bay area? Would love to support these artists.
thanks.
Wow, what a musician. He must have had an incredible eighty years of living and creating beauty. Sorry to hear of his passing.
Too many deaths been going on. Unrelated, The
Easybeats live on German TV, pt. 1 -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pseGuPvj35A&feature=related
part 2 -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Vjjx3VF6_LY&feature=related
For those only interested in the big hits, *WITH A BULLET*, Friday On My Mind (officially rated as the #1 song from Austrailia) starts about 3:30 into the 2nd. part.
elvis @ 6:
I'm in LA so I don't know the clubs up in SF. I've played in a bunch of rock clubs in the Bay Area. I played with Tommy Castro who is a great blues player at the JJ's Blues clubs back in the early 90's. They are easy to find.
This is my, Bugsy and Andy's cover of Flash and the Pan's Love Is A Gun. I think the only thing retained of me in this concept to cover of mine was it's me on the keyboard parts. I think the delegation of the other parts as they ended up in the final recoding of this worked out anyWAY :-) -
http://www.thesequencers.us/samples/loveisagun.mp3
"And guitar George
He knows all the chords"
Do you know of any small clubs in the San Francisco bay area? Would love to support these artists.
thanks.
Hi -
You won't find anyone in a small San Francisco club playing like this.
Still, there's lots of good jazz to hear.
KCSM has a listing and all of the SF clubs with jazz on Monday look promising.
Try the KCSM jazz date book at http://www.kcsm.org/datebook/index.php .
Jazz at Pearls is the only club I've been to on the list besides Yoshi's and that was 15 years ago. I'll bet the music there is always good.
-Alan
(What a nice surprise to see Johnny Griffin memorialized in a non-music context).
elvis @ 6:
Yoshi's. I understand they moved from Oakland to San Francisco, so I don't know the new venue, but the old Yoshi's was great!!
Johnny Griffin recorded the most sublime version of Naima I've ever heard, with Cedar Walton and Eastern Rebellion. Sam Jones is gone. Smilin' Billy Higgins is gone and now Johnny Griffin is gone. Cedar is the only one left of that great quartet.
Whenever I think of small clubs in the SF area, I think of the 13th. Floor Elevators.
lat week not only did Johnny pass but so did 2 other great musicians, guitarists Joe Beck and Hiram Bullock
Peace, Jason
Johnny Griffin was indeed one of the giants of the tenor saxophone. Whenever I think of Johnny Griffin I also think of Sonny Rollins who, as one of the titles of one his classic albums correctly noted, was a saxophone colossus. To hear Rollins blow was like listening to a human wave of energy, such as in the classic The Way You Look Tonight. Both Griffin and Rollins had [with Rollins still having] the same amazing breath control with their instrument.
My condolences, Amato.
Johnny messed up my head when I was coming up, in many positive ways. Getting those sixteenths to spill off the tongue like a machine gun, having those altissimo G's and A's ever ready for hitting when required melodically. (And what fingering was he using on the G? I had to go see him at Keystone to find out.)
Can't believe he's gone. I'm going to transcribe a solo of his later today to celebrate the fact that he walked the earth.
I've always thought that Griffin way of playing with the time -- playing ahead of or behind the beat -- was better than anybody's. I'm so sad that he's gone.
I took my Mom and Dad to see him at the Vanguard in '78. He made my mother swoon. When he played Soft and Furry she stood up out of her chair mesmerized like a snake charmer's python. She said she didn't even realize she was standing until the song was over.
Cobra. Snake charmer's cobra. Sheesh.
AT was the man. I once saw him in amsterdam not only play every drum and cymbal individually in a solo, but the cybal stand as well, and melodically. incredible. now both are gone. epistrophy
p.s. griff wasn't bad either, especiall all the things you are at lightning tempo.
p.p.s. johnny griffin live in japam has been released, unfortunately they left out the best cut, called "soft and furry." hmm, wonder what he was referring to?
for anyone from Chicago that would like to go to a great jazz club, try the Velvet Lounge. Down near Cermak. Amazing club that needs support. The Sunday Night jam features many outstanding locals.
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