The Little Giant Turns 80
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Johnny Griffin, once widely known as the fastest tenor in the west and more commonly “the Little Giant”, is 80 today. The Chicagoan best known for his tough tenor partnership with Eddie Lockjaw Davis, extensive sideman work with Thelonious Monk, his own highly regarded Blue Note albums, and his contribution to the influential Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland European big band, is also the subject of a new book, The Little Giant: The Story of Johnny Griffin by Mike Hennessey.
Griffin, like Kenny Clarke and Bud Powell, lived in Paris within a star-studded community of expat American jazz giants in the 1960s, a period so evocatively captured in Bertrand Tavernier’s film 'Round Midnight. Hennessey pulls no punches in his candid book, detailing Griffin’s life back home in Chicago, the pursuit of his career in New York and then in Europe, where he still makes his home.
In an interview with Hennessey, Griffin says: “The Blue Note label has a special place in my memory because of the albums I made in 1956 and 1957. In April 1956, I made my first Blue Note LP: Chicago Calling – Introducing Johnny Griffin, which was recorded in Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack Studio with Wynton Kelly, Curley Russell and Max Roach. Then, in April the following year, in the same studio, I recorded the Blue Note album A Blowing Session, with Lee Morgan, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Art Blakey. I have very happy memories of those sessions.”
According to Hennessey, Griffin also loves Full House, with Wes Montgomery, the recording he did with the Monk Quartet at the Five Spot in July 1958 and the albums with Jaws.
Griffin appears at Ronnie Scott’s club in London on 26 and 27 May and is in conversation with Hennessey at Foyles book shop, Charing Cross Rd, at 6pm on 27 May, before the gig that night. Griffin’s band for Soho is thought to include Roy Hargrove, James Pearson, Reggie Johnson and special guest, Jiggs Whigham.
Go to www.ronniescotts.co.uk for more.
(Pictured: Johnny Griffin at the Brecon Jazz Festival in 2006. Photo: Tim Dickeson)
Griffin appears at Ronnie Scott’s club in London on 26 and 27 May and is in conversation with Hennessey at Foyles book shop, Charing Cross Rd, at 6pm on 27 May, before the gig that night. Griffin’s band for Soho is thought to include Roy Hargrove, James Pearson, Reggie Johnson and special guest, Jiggs Whigham.
Go to www.ronniescotts.co.uk for more.
(Pictured: Johnny Griffin at the Brecon Jazz Festival in 2006. Photo: Tim Dickeson)