Daily Dose Of Jazz…

John Arnold Griffin III was born on April 24, 1928 in Chicago, Illinois. Nicknamed the “Little Giant”, he studied music at DuSable High School starting out on clarinet, taking up the oboe and finally the alto saxophone. At fifteen he was playing with T-Bone Walker and three days after graduation joined Lionel Hampton who encouraged the young man to take up the tenor, appearing on a Hamp recording in 1945 at age 17.

In the mid-forties Johnny formed a sextet with Joe Morris and George Freeman, played on R&B records for Atlantic Records and played baritone with Arnett Cobb’s R&B band. After a two-year stint in the Army he returned to Chicago and began establishing his reputation, subsequently signing with Blue Note. By 1957 he gained membership into Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, then replaced Coltrane in Monk’s Five Spot Quartet, and recorded Thelonious In Action and Misterioso.

On his first leader outing in 1956 with Blue Note that brought him critical acclaim, Griffin led Wynton Kelly, Curly Russell and Max Roach on “Introducing Johnny Griffin”.  This was immediately followed the next year with “A Blowing Session” featuring Coltrane and Hank Mobley. He went on to play with Monk, Blakey and with Clark Terry. During this period he became known as the fastest tenor in the west for the ease with which he could execute fast note runs with excellent intonation.

In 1960 he teamed up with Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis establishing a quintet and recorded several albums over the next two years, then moved to France in ’63 and recorded with Wes Montgomery and Dizzy Gillespie, Nat Adderley, and joined the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band and by 1978 he moved to the Netherlands. He became the first choice sax player for touring musicians to the continent. In the seventies he and Davis recorded again, he played with Toots Thielemans, Nat Adderley, Grady Tate, Stan Getz, Art Farmer, Slide Hampton, Gerry Mulligan and arranger Quincy Jones among a host of others.

On July 25, 2008, Johnny Griffin passed away of a heart attack at the age of 80 in Mauprévoir, France, his home for the last 24 years of his life.

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