Download - Downbeat

Griffin Played Hard,Lived QuietlyFour days after performing what would becomehis final concert, saxophonist Johnny Griffindied of a heart attack at his country home inAvailles-Limouzine, France, on July 25. He’dhad heart problems since 1993. Griffin was 80years old.“Johnny Griffin was the nicest person thatI’ve ever been around,” said drummer KennyWashington, who worked with him often overthe last 28 years. “He was always positive, to thepoint where club owners and promoters wouldtake advantage of him. In all the years I waswith him, I never saw him get mad.”Maybe that was because Griffin chose totake revenge in a characteristically gentleway—by living freely and well. In recent years,he worked when he wished and enjoyed gardeningand tending the 10-room château in theFrench countryside with his wife, Miriam, thathad been their home since 1984. It was an unexpectedand elegant outcome to a life that wouldnot likely have come to Griffin had he remainedin the United States.Born April 24, 1928, in Chicago, Griffincame of age as bebop was displacing swingin the mid and late ’40s. Known for theglancing speed and intensity of his attack,Griffin was a titan of the straightahead, musculartenor persuasion.“He had this way of abruptly lunging atthings at any moment,” said pianist MichaelWeiss, a member of Griffin’s quartet since 1987.“But he could also finish the same line with asweet lyrical melody. Griffin should be rememberednot only for his technical virtuosity, butfor how he used that technique in his overallexpression, woven into the fabric of his style.”If Griffin received perhaps too much creditfor his speed, he received too little for otherqualities.“I don’t mean to take anything away fromJohn Coltrane,” Washington said, “but whenIra Gitler coined that phrase ‘sheets of sound,’Johnny was playing like that in the early’50s—stacking chords and playing throughthe changes. Griffin is from that in-betweenera of tenor players. He was into Don Byasand Coleman Hawkins. He took a lot of whatthose great swing players had like tone—Buddy Tate, Ike Quebec and LuckyThompson—and he meshed that with bop, soyour got the best of both.”Griffin started his career in the big time at18 with Lionel Hampton, and scored his firstrecord session sitting next to Arnett Cobb onHampton’s famous “Hey Ba-Ba-Re-Bop” inDecember 1945. Another 227 sessions andconcerts would be added to his discographyover the next 60 years, during which time herecorded with fellow tenors from Cobb andJohnny Griffin at New York’sBlue Note in 2005Dexter Gordon to Coltrane and, more recently,James Carter.One of his most exciting tenor partnershipsbegan in 1960 with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis.Picking up on the two-tenor tradition of WardellGray–Dexter Gordon and Flip Phillips–IllinoisJacquet, the pair were a study in contrasting personalitiesbut perfectly matched skills, as eachset a high bar for the other. The “Tough Tenors,”as they were called, worked on and off for thenext 25 years.After marking time playing r&b in the late’40s and a two-year stint in the army, Griffinburst onto the hard-bop scene of the mid-’50swith a vengeance, working first with Art Blakey,then Thelonious Monk, and finally a series of hisown albums between 1958 and 1963 for OrrinKeepnews’ Riverside and Milestone labels,including The Little Giant and Way Out!In 1963, Griffin’s long battle with the IRSbegan. At the same time, young critics werebeing beguiled by the new free jazz. “I though itwas all rubbish,” he told his biographer, MikeHennessey in the book The Little Giant: TheStory Of Johnny Griffin (Northway).Griffin also felt his personal life was sinking.“I was misusing my body,” he said, “drinkingtoo much and not eating right.” So he leftAmerica for Europe and would not return for 15years. “If I had stayed in America I would bedead by now,” he told Hennessey. “I was astoned zombie when I left.”In Europe, a reinvigorated Griffin found acommunity of peers. He worked with the greatClarke–Bolland Big Band, his first full band gigsince Hampton, and regained strength and confidence.In 1978 he returned to the U.S. to considerableacclaim and a series of new albums forGalaxy/Fantasy, once again for Keepnews. ButAmerica was now a place to visit, not to live. Hereturned frequently during the next 30 years, butnever permanently.“Johnny had a stroke around 2003,” Weisssaid, “and lost a considerable amount of weight.I played with him at the Blue Note in 2005 andwe thought his endurance would be a problem.But he couldn’t stop playing.”“He never wanted to depend on anybody,”Washington said. “He always had some moneystashed, so he was never under anyone’s thumb.That was a lesson for me. Grif told me to alwayskeep some scratch around so if somethingdoesn’t go right, you’re free to go home.”—John McDonoughJACK VARTOOGIAN20 DOWNBEAT November 2008