FACT FILE:
Artist: Johnny Griffin
Album: Introducing Johnny Griffin (1957)
Label: Blue Note
MUSICIANS:
Tenor Sax: Johnny Griffin
Piano: Wynton Kelly
Bass: Curly Russell
Drums: Max Roach
WHY YOU SHOULD CHECK THIS OUT:
This is Griffin’s first solo album, and arguably his best. With blazingly fast versions of “Cherokee”, “The Way You Look Tonight”, and his own “Mildew”, along with killer ballad versions of “Lover Man” and “These Foolish Things”, this album is a wild rollercoaster ride of astonishing technique and amazing tone.
Add to this an amazing rhythm section of heavyweights who have recorded with Dizzy, Miles, and Coltrane, and you have a winning recipe.
STEVE COLE: My Classic Album
This album blew my mind.
It was an album that my father had. Johnny Griffin was a pyrotechnic saxophone player – just the fluidity of ideas and the technique. It had such a personality about it, both challenging and interesting and inspiring.
Even now at gigs one of the songs I like to play just for fun is “The Way You Look Tonight” at 180! I remember it from being very young, and I heard that saxophone playing and I thought “I want to be able to do that one day”.
www.mackavenue.com/artists/steve-cole