As a CD reissue, it's a crime that this very first outing by
Johnny Griffin as a leader is only available from Japan in an irritating paper sleeve that comes apart down the center. OK, enough bitching. Here's the skinny:
Griffin's first date featured the saxophonist in the company of
Junior Mance on piano, bassist
Wilbur Ware, and session drummer Buddy Smith. The program features eight tunes that were fairly standard fare for jazzmen in 1956, such as "These Foolish Things,"
Jerome Kern's "Yesterdays," and the Youmans-Greene nugget "The Boy Next Door." These are played with the requisite verve and mastery of harmony, rhythm, and melodic changes, but they don't really stand out. What does stand out in this program are
Griffin's originals, such as "Satin Wrap," which has since been covered by any tenor player worth his mouthpiece. It's a funky blues number that does not fall headlong into the hard bop swinging that would be so pervasive in the tenorist's style. Instead there are more formalist notions that suggest
Paul Gonsalves and
Coleman Hawkins. In addition, the album-closer, "Lollypop," comes out swinging hard with an R&B hook that digs in.
Mance propels
Griffin with fat, greasy chords that suggest a Chicago bar-walking honk frenzy, but
Griffin's own playing is too sophisticated and glides like
Lester Young around the changes. Also notable here is
Ware's beautiful bop run "Riff Raff." The bassist knew not only how to write for but arrange for horns.
Mance and
Griffin are in it knee-deep, note for note, with
Mance adding beefy left-hand clusters to the melody as
Ware and Smith play it straight time until the solo, when the middle breaks up and everybody goes in a different direction. It's got the hard bop blues at its root. This recording is brief, as it originally came out on a 10" LP, but is nonetheless a necessary addition to any shelf that pays
Johnny Griffin homage. ~ Thom Jurek