James Harrell McGriff (April 3, 1936 – May 24, 2008) was an American hard bop and soul-jazz organist and organ trio bandleader who developed a distinctive style of playing the Hammond B-3 organ.
McGriff was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Encouraged by
his pianist father, he learned the instrument from the age of five, and
sometimes played organ in his parents' Baptist church, but by his teens was
also playing vibraphone, sax and drums. Like Smith and the New Jersey organist
Richard "Groove" Holmes, McGriff also played double bass. The Hammond
jazz techniques developed in the 1950s depended on a grasp of the rhythmic and
harmonic role of a bass part's interaction with a melody.
McGriff attended Philadelphia's Combe College of Music, but
the Korean war turned him briefly toward a career in law enforcement. He was a
US army military policeman, and then spent two years in the Philadelphia police
force. But mid-1950s Philadelphia was boiling with bluesy music. Smith, at
first a local R&B and jazz pianist, had taken up the Hammond B3 organ in
1953, and his development of an astonishing technique involving pedalled
walking bass lines, note-packed bebop solos, and thrilling vibrato effects
using the revolving Leslie speaker and other sonic modifications made him an
explosive jazz star by 1956.
That same year, McGriff heard the Smith-influenced Groove
Holmes play at his sister's wedding. He promptly took up the Hammond himself,
with Holmes as his teacher. McGriff familiarised himself with the Hammond B3 in
six months, and took organ lessons from Smith and Milt Buckner as well as
attending New York's Juilliard School.
By 1960, he was working in Philadelphia with the then tenor
saxophonist - later to be a popular organist - Charles Earland, accompanying
classy touring performers, including the singer Carmen McRae. But the following
year was the turning point. The independent Jell Records label invited the
organist to record I Got a Woman, and the McGriff version became a favourite
with Philadelphia radio DJs. For another small label, Sue Records, McGriff
composed his own popular classic of the organ-funk genre, All About My Girl,
and released an album.
Unlike Smith, who had launched his career at jazz clubs like
New York's Cafe Bohemia and at the Newport Jazz Festival, McGriff was already
an organist veering toward the Hammond's increasingly popular R&B
incarnation. It was not coincidental that the legendary Stax Records house
rhythm section, organist Booker T and the MGs, also released a Hammond version
of I Got a Woman in 1962.
McGriff recorded throughout the 1960s, with his materials
broadening to include Count Basie swing hits - pianist Basie, occasionally an
organist himself, was also an early McGriff influence - movie themes and pop
covers. He toured extensively, moved to New Jersey and opened a supper club,
the Golden Slipper, where he recorded his 1971 live album The Black Pearl.
In 1968 McGriff came close to another success with The Worm,
an engaging piece of jazz-funk featuring the heated trumpet sound of Blue
Mitchell, and he performed with a big band on the following year's Electric
Funk. He also became an attraction in the big band led by swing drummer Buddy
Rich.
The organist briefly retired in 1972, but with the rise of
disco, he had discovered another dance form that could benefit from his Hammond
treatment. The albums Stump Juice (1975), Red Beans (1976) and Outside Looking
In (1978) represent this shift, and though the materials are often thin, the
sessions are lifted by McGriff's coolly grooving lines and stalking-cat
deliberation.
When he moved to the Milestone label in the 1980s, McGriff
mingled more jazz with his soul sound, playing alongside Hank Crawford and
"Fathead" Newman, who had also been Ray Charles's sideman.
In the 1990s he experimented with the synthesiser effects on
the new Hammond XB-3, but returned to the original sound for some of his most
freewheeling and engaging later recordings, like Straight Up in 1997 - which
included a typically slow-burning, soul-savouring account of the Isley
Brothers' It's Your Thing - and McGriff's House Party (2000) which was
formidably enhanced by the presence of charismatic McGriff organ heir, Lonnie
Liston Smith. The McGriff-Newman-Crawford partnership continued as the Dream
Team. McGriff went on playing until 2007.
A resident of Voorhees Township, New Jersey, McGriff died
there at age 72 on May 24, 2008, due to complications of multiple sclerosis.
(Info mainly from John Fordham – The Guardian)
1 comment:
For Jimmy McGriff – The Anthology go here:
http://www11.zippyshare.com/v/WdeKui7g/file.html
01. The Worm
02. Blue Juice
03. Spinning Wheel
04. I've Got a Woman (Part 1)
05. Back on the Track
06. All About My Girl
07. Chris Cross
08. Hob Nail Boogie (Remastered)
09. The Bird Wave
10. Funky Junk
11. Keep Loose
12. Heavy Weight
13. Splanky (Remastered)
14. Spear For Moondog, Part 2
15. Slow But Sure (Remastered)
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