 Jimmy McGriff & Hank Crawford in Sacramento 1995 |
McGriff has always paid homage to his teacher and friend, Jimmy Smith, but he rightly claims that "when it comes into the Blues thing, then we got a little different outlook on things." The two Jimmys first appeared on the same stage together in Chicago in 1967. It was then that serious listeners really heard the difference between their organ styles. "I was more like the Blues, doin' the church thing," says McGriff. "Jimmy [Smith] couldn't play what I was playing and I couldn't play what he was playin' 'cause we were hearing two different things."
Today Jimmy McGriff's fame is once again reasserting itself, partly due to expert management but also because of a steady flow of releases, many of which feature his groove partner, Hank Crawford. Their latest effort shows up on the Telarc label and proves beyond a drawbar of a doubt that the Blues nod stills goes to Mr. McGriff.
"Fame," as Jimmy puts it, "can get to you." There was a time not too long ago when he decided that it was not worth it. In 1969 he had just completed a stint with Buddy Rich's band. "I bought a club, and I was really concentrating on trying to make this club work. I went back with Buddy Rich in '71 and stayed with him until the last part of '72, and then I just stopped. I said forget it; I'm going to quit playing music."
What Jimmy did was move to Connecticut and buy a horse farm. Raising horses sounds like a far cry from playing the Hammond organ, but a link between the two soon drew Jimmy out of the stable and back to the lounge. Before Jimmy began his music career, he worked in law enforcement in Philadelphia. Apparently he also became well known in that field. A curious police officer in Connecticut paid a visit to this new neighbor who was buying so many horses. Jimmy recalls, "He checked me out, and he found out who I was and my past. His son was a Jazz lover and used to come to the barn and ask if he could hear me play sometime."
Even though Jimmy insisted that he wasn't playing anymore, this young man hounded him for over seven months. Jimmy was also hearing this from friends like Shirley Scott and Jackie McLean, who wanted him to return. "I couldn't get away from it," reports Jimmy, "so I sold the farm and I came back out and I've been out there ever since. "Jimmy McGriff came back out indeed, and for the most part, he has stayed away from hightech keyboards. He had sold his organ to Charlie Earland but soon received another as a gift from a club owner in Trenton. His love and devotion to the Hammond B-3 and the Leslie speaker sound steered him straight. This sound, after all, was the reason why he had left the bass fiddle, which he had played earlier in his career.
"The organ has the sounds I hear and can tune into," says Jimmy. "I can change the sound to what I want and hear. l can't change the sound of a piano." It should also be said that Jimmy McGriff is one of only a few organ players who dare to play both the organ and the piano on the same bandstand.
Jimmy McGriff can call himself the best Blues organist, but I must confess I feel that his playing is more eclectic. Any given set can contain Blues, Rock, Pop, Gospel, or Jazz, and by his own admission he never prepares his set. "Whenever I go on a stage, I never know. I always let the audience prepare for me 'cause it's a feeling. I can feel the kinda mood that that crowd is in. After I play to that mood, I can pull them into where I want them."
This is a lesson he learned from Duke Ellington. Jimmy says that he carries this attitude with him even into the recording studio. "I think about a club I went to where I liked the audience response, and I play to that audience right there--and it works."
Jimmy McGriff remembers what Duke Ellington told him about performing. He also remembers how Philadelphia's unknown organ wizard, Sonny Gatewood, would show him how to put unusual chord changes together. And he remembers the styles and showmanship exhibited by mentors Earl Grant and Milt Buckner. Jimmy McGriff has taken it all in and continues to grow.
"Music is like a wheel," says Jimmy. "When you drive a car down a street, you might go down the same street, but you'll run over something today that wasn't there yesterday, so that puts a new look on that tire, and that's the way music is. When it goes over, it picks up something that wasn't there before."
And so Jimmy McGriff rolls down the road with his organ on cruise control while others are frantically shifting through the gears. "I always say if I'm going to do something, I either have to be the best at it or pushin' the best. I can't just do it to be doin' it 'cause there's no end to music. Every day that I play I learn something new."
Pete Fallico - November 1994