By Aaron Cohen

Down Beat magazine, March 2001

Johnny Griffin stands in a battle position on stage. It’s April, and like every April for the past 20-some years, he’s been celebrating his birthday at his hometown Chicago’s Jazz Showcase. He wears a small Chinese cap that resembles he spoils from the Tong wars, and friends, fans and relatives pack the room. The tenor saxophonist sends a few verbal jabs toward Showcase proprietor and longtime pal Joe Segal, and makes a few salacious asides that could be lifted from a Red Foxx album. Then he begins to play.

Producer: Ben Sidran

See: http://npr.org/programs/jazzprofiles/jgriffin.html

While physically diminutive, tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin blows a sound big enough to span continents, transcend cultural barriers, and withstand the test of time. This "Little Giant" of jazz first strutted his stuff in Lionel Hampton’s band, emerged in the 40’s as one of the most impressive bebop practitioners to carry on the legacy of Charlie Parker, kept pace with Thelonius Monk at the Five Spot, and delved into the gospel roots of jazz with his Big Soul Band. On this 70th birthday tribute to a too often overlooked jazz luminary, we give Johnny Griffin credit where credit is long overdue.

Although he’s been cultivating his notorious "joie de vivre" as an expatriate in France for the past 30 years, Griffin’s sound and his soul still resonate with the rhythms of his native Chicago. Born and raised on the Southeast side of that city, Griffin received his musical education at DuSable High School under the guidance of Captain Walter Diet, a mentor to many young musicians. At Captain Diet’s insistence,Griffin began on the clarinet – "the father of the reed instruments." In 1946, when Lionel Hampton paid a visit to DuSable and "discovered" the young talent, Griffin was finally granted the opportunity to shine on the instrument he really coveted – tenor saxophone.

Practically overnight, Griffin hit the big time, touring with one of the most renowned swing bands of the era, and achieving star status as a featured soloist. Still, after a year, Griffin grew restless with the limited repertoire of popular music. With Hampton band trumpeter, Joe Morris, Griffin and other Chicago musicians formed a sextet and went to New York under the auspices of exploring the cutting-edge phenomenon of bebop. Soon after, however, the Joe Morris band split over the question of commercialism, with half of its constituents turning towards rhythm and blues, and the other half, which included Griffin, opting for the less-traveled path of bebop. Hanging around with such musicians as Elmo Hope, Philly Joe Jones, and Thelonious Monk, Griffin received his "higher education" in the complexities of jazz music.

After he was drafted to serve in the Korean War and saved from the front lines by his prowess in the Army band, Griffin returned to New York where he was courted by several record companies and ultimately signed with Blue Note. According to producer Orin Keepnews, the Blue Note recordings showcased Griffin’s capacity as a speedy player, and to the saxophonist’s dismay, he ended up typecast as the "fastest gun in the West." Griffin sought a venue in which he could demonstrate his musical range, and he found it as tenor chair with Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot. Although Monk’s Quartet provided a supreme challenge, the pianist’s style was so distinctive that Griffin didn’t have enough "elbow space" for his own experimentation.

To find this freedom, Griffin returned to Chicago, the hub of contemporary gospel, and recorded what was arguably the first album to approach gospel standards through the idiom of jazz. With Chicago pianist Norman Simmons arranging, "Johnny Griffin and The Big Soul Band" marked the beginning of the most prolific period of Griffin’s career.

For many jazz musicians, the ‘60’s were a tough time. Johnny Griffin was no exception. When work in the States grew scarce, Griffin headed for Europe where he has been touring, recording, and appreciating the "good life" for the past 30 years. As drummer Kenny Washington attests, Griffin finally got the recognition he deserved playing for European audiences, and nowadays, he’s reaping the benefits of years of hard work, and learning to take his sweet time.

Interviewees include drummer Kenny Washington, guitarist George Freeman, producer Orin Keepnews, and saxophonist Phil Woods.

By Alun Morgan

See: http://members.tripod.com/~hardbop/griffin.html

"I like to play fast. I get excited, and I have to sort of control myself, restrain myself. But when the rhythm section gets cooking, I want to explode." -- Johnny Griffin

Critic Ralph J. Gleason made an oft-quoted remark about Johnny Griffin during the course of a 1958 Down Beat record review. To avoid any misunderstandings this is Gleason's paragraph, in full. "Unquestionably Johnny Griffin can play the tenor saxophone faster, literally, than anyone else alive. At least he can claim this until it's demonstrated otherwise. And in the course of playing with this incredible speed, he also manages to blow longer without refueling than you would ordinarily consider possible. With this equipment he is able to play almost all there could possibly be played in any give chorus."

As far as it goes Gleason's words are probably correct. (In the absence of a jazz section to the Guiness Book of Records we must assume Griffin's leading position in the field of runners in the Semi-Quaver Race.) But it would be wrong to assume that John Arnold Griffin III was nothing more than a note-producing machine fitted with a control graduated from "Finished With Engines" up to "Full Speed Ahead."

He is an amazingly consistent soloist, a man who is never off form by all accounts; undeniably he likes fast tempos but is a complete, rounded jazz musician, capable of tackling any material with the aid (or something otherwise!) of any rhythm section. Since he came to Europe in 1962, at the age of 34, he has been giving free lessons on the gentle arts of relaxation, saxophone technique, deep-seated emotional intensity and a host of other important elements to thousands of listeners in Paris, London, Copenhagen and any other centers where jazz is appreciated.

When John left the United States he seemed already to have achieved more than many jazzmen achieve in a lifetime. He was 16 when he joined Lionel Hampton's band as an alto saxophonist. At least Griffin thought he had been booked to play alto in the reed section. On his first date with the band he took out the smaller horn only to be asked the whereabouts of his tenor. He dashed back home to Chicago at the earliest opportunity laid hands on a tenor and rejoined Hamp's reed section which contained such stalwarts as Arnett Cobb, Bobby Plater and Charlie Fowlkes.

When Joe Morris, one of Hamp's trumpeters, left to form his own band in 1947 John went with him and stayed with Morris for three years. Morris's lively little rhythm-and-blues band had a rhythm section comprising Elmo Hope, Percy Heath and Philly Joe Jones for a time. He spoke of the Joe Morris band with pride, listed the names of the men who had passed through its ranks and gave me the news that Morris had died a few years earlier.

Apart from a handful of relatively short engagements with other bands (Arnett Cobb's unit in 1951, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from March to October 1975 and the Thelonious Monk Quartet during the summer of 1958) Griffin has been a solo artist or band leader since leaving the Joe Morris band. When I spoke to him during one of his bookings at the Ronnie Scott Club during the late '60s he seemed content to be touring the European jazz centers, secure in the knowledge that he would find a suitable rhythm section for his engagements.