THE FASTEST GUN IN THE MIDWEST

I'd like to pay tribute to a diminutive, fiery figure who made an enormous contribution to hard bop jazz - the Chicago born tenor saxophonist JOHNNY GRIFFIN.

His sound was light and airy but with tremendous power and a fluent technique which he loved to display, playing breathtaking unaccompanied choruses after shouting to the rhythm section "I got it, I got it! (I know - I was there behind him on such occasions, which I will get to in a minute.)

His style and sound is perhaps best recognised in contrast to that of Eddie Lockjaw Davis, with whom he co-led an exciting quintet for several years. Griff and Lock would take the band to one- nighters all over the States, sharing the thousands of miles of driving between them, such was their enthusiasm and determination to keep this little combo going.

Lockjaw's gruff tone and staccato phrasing are famous from his solos with the Basie band. Griffin buzzes round him like an excitable wasp. The combination of these two utterly different tenor stylists is captivating. In the "ring" together they are probably the best contestants of all time to slug it out on their horns. (And I'm not forgetting Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, but they sounded - although easily distinguishable - more stylistically similar.)

The music made by the "Tough Tenors" (and their superb sidemen - usually Junior Mance, Larry Gales and Ben Riley) deserves a musing of its own. Note to self to revisit this idea. For now, I just want to concentrate on Griffin alone.

Firstly a word of recommendation of some of his early recordings under his own name.

These started in 1956/7 with two albums featuring his fellow Chicagoan, the underrated and very talented bassist WILBUR WARE. Beautiful gut-string sound, canny choice of notes and really swinging.

Check out J.G. on Argo (a Chicago label) lp 624 and The Chicago cookers on Jazzland JLP 12.

In 1956 Griff signed with Blue Note and  made Introducing Johnny Griffin, A blowing session and The congregation as well as appearing on other dates as a sideman.

In 1958, he switched to Riverside and I would single out as my favourites (1) Way out, a superb quartet album with KENNY DREW, WLBUR WARE again and my man PHILLY JOE who is at the top of his game; (2) The big soul band, a ten-piece ensemble including Clark Terry and Charlie Persip playing arrangements by pianist NORMAN SIMMONS; and (3) the enchanting The Kerry  dancers lp, a quartet with BARRY HARRIS, RON CARTER and BEN RILEY. The title track is a desert island disc for me.

In 1963, like other black musicians, Griffin left the States in disillusionment at his treatment and settled in Europe for the rest of his long life.

I mention one album from this period: Sincerely ours with trumpeter Rolf Ericson made in 1978 for the Four Leaf Clover label. I single this out because I was asked to review it for Jazz Journal and was delighted to find that the drummer was none other than RONNIE STEPHENSON, who I had long admired playing at Ronnie's in Gerrard St. and with the Stan Tracey big band. Ronnie sounded great on this record.

So to the personal connection. I first met Johnny at the house of Randi Hultin (mother of my first wife) in Norway where he would hang out with Art Taylor when they were gigging in Oslo.

I had heard Griff live once before in 1965  when he was appearing at Ronnie's but that was the very night when I first heard BOBBY WELLINS sitting in with Stan Tracey's trio for the first set and Bobby blew me away to the extent that the evening could hold no more emotional highs for me.

In 1969, I got to know Johnny when he was touring with the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland big band and I was on the same bill and the same coach as part of the trio backing Roland Kirk. Johnny seemed incapable of ever running out of steam and he walked up and down the bus non-stop regaling everybody else on board in turn with his jokes and reminiscences.

Later that year, I ran into him again at a jazz festival in Hungary. He was playing with A.T. as usual and I was in a bizarre quintet co-led by Maynard Ferguson and Sandy Brown. We had retired by about 2am in the hotel but I got up to go down the corridor for a pee about 5am. And there was Griff propped up against the wall still in his DJ and black tie protesting "Fucking hell, man, where IS everybody?" 

In 1970, he was booked into Ronnie's in Frith St. for a residency and Mick Pyne, Ron Matthewson and I (the usual suspects once again) were hired to accompany him. On the opening night, my wife (because of his friendship with her mother) and I invited him to supper at our flat in the art deco block of flats The Grampians in Shepherd's Bush. Unfortunately, she made chilli and a great many audible farts were let off on the stand at Ronnie’s to our mutual amusement.

It was a gas. (No, I mean musically). Griff described to an Evening Standard journalist our habit of halving the tempo for contrast on breakneck numbers as "a peculiarly English thing" but I think we caught it off the Miles Davis rhythm section. He liked it anyway, as he did launching out into virtuoso unaccompanied solos.

I don't think I ever played with him again, more's the pity. He eventually died "in harness" in 2008. He had been gigging in France at the age of 80 only four nights before.

A lovely man. A great player. I have some of his best records to knock myself out with and I'll never forget him.

T