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Jimmy McGriff R.I.P.


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"Them critics, I didn't really pay them no mind. They didn't have to eat off my records. I did. I had to change up to stay alive. And that's what I did; stayed alive."

Jimmy McGriff

2005

Waxpoetics Magazine Interview

No. Because it seems to me that Jimmy is being unceccesarily defensive about his music in this quote. It sounds a bit like, "well, the critics are right and really I'd have much preferred to play Hard Bop, but I could earn a living this way, so I did." But if Jimmy really thought like that, I think I'd sell all the albums of his that I have. Which is not to say that I don't think Jimmy and others in that business wanted to earn a decent living through their music, but that they had chosen where they wanted to be for reasons that weren't essentially financial. And to make the argument that Jimmy did is to demean those reasons.

MG

I think you're being unnecessarily defensive about the musical results when Jimmy "changed up to stay alive".

Really, if Jimmy wasn't greatly pleased with what he was recording, why should that effect your reaction to the music? Its your reaction, not Jimmy's or the critics, that ought to matter. And you say you'd sell all of your copies of his music if you found out that he had chosen where he wanted to be for reasons that were essentially financial? :wacko:

You've expressed enthusiasm for a number of recordings from this era (say, mid to late 70s) that, of the ones I've heard, I consider to be complete or nearly competely putrid. (Like, for instance, the Blue Mitchell recordings before he got together with Harold Land, or I think there are one or two Sonny Criss records).

Are you saying that in order to continue to enjoy those records, you need to know that it was "where their heads (and hearts) were at" at that time (so to speak) instead of knowing that they made a conscious decision to record what was popular at that time?

No, you've got me wrong, Dan. What I was saying was that, if Jimmy would really have preferred to have played Hard Bop, then he should have done so. But were it so, almost the whole of his work would have been dishonest. As it was, Jimmy acceded to the underlying premise of whoever was interviewing him that what he did was less good than some "less commercial" stuff, not described but which it's implied receives critical plaudits, and that the only reason for playing Soul Jazz was to make money that one otherwise wouldn't/couldn't make. I think that premise is untrue, elitist and demeaning of the music that Jimmy played all his working life.

It is much like the attitude of Abdullah Ibrahim, on returning to South Africa in 1975, who criticised the township jive/jazz played by musicians like Ntemi Piliso, Lulu Masilela and Zacks Nkosi, and described it as "not jazz". Sounds like jazz to me - but it's clearly jazz for the people, not the elite.

(Now, I'm happy to hear guys like Sonny Criss, Charlie Parker, Blue Mitchell do the occasional thing with strings etc for dancing audiences. That isn't so significant that it affects their whole oeuvre.)

MG

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I don't think McGriff preferred to play Hard Bop at all. From the very begining of his career (re: those Sue sides) he was playing essentially R&B with some jazz on the side. He always said he was not a jazz organist, but a blues organist.

Yes, he changed up his approach in the 70s, just like every other organist (and most jazz players) in order to keep "relevant". But he still had a love and respect for the music in his playing, which is apparent. Unlike those Larry Young "funk" records where he's obviously doing it to try and make some bread and doesn't really believe in what he's playing. That's apparent there, too.

I've always said, as long as you play with purpose and authority, people will like it.

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Sorry to be a bit late on this, but here's the rather extensive obituary that appeared in last Wednesday's Philadelphia Inquirer:

Posted on Wed, May. 28, 2008

Jazzman Jimmy McGriff, 72, soulful master of the organ

By Dan DeLuca and Sally A. Downey

Inquirer Staff Writers

James H. "Jimmy" McGriff Jr., 72, a master of the Hammond B-3 organ who scored gospel-powered 1960s instrumental hits with Ray Charles' "I've Got a Woman" and his own "All About My Girl," died of complications from multiple sclerosis on Saturday at Voorhees Center Genesis.

Mr. McGriff's hard-driving, funky playing was pivotal in making Philadelphia the capital of the jazz-organ world. His sound put him in the company of such other Philadelphia-area jazz organ greats as Camden's Richard "Groove" Holmes, Norristown's Jimmy Smith, and Philadelphians Bill Doggett, Trudy Pitts, Shirley Scott, and Joey and "Papa John" DeFrancesco.

Yet Mr. McGriff was always quick to note the gospel and blues elements in his music.

"They talk about who taught me this and who taught me that," the musician, who grew up worshiping at Eastern Star Baptist Church in East Germantown, told AllAboutJazz.com in 2000. "But the basic idea of what I'm doing on the organ came from the church. That's how I got it, and I just never dropped it."

Mr. McGriff's many collaborators included saxophonist Hank Crawford, drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, and bluesman Junior Parker. "They've always considered me a jazz organist, which I am not," he once said. "I'm more of a blues player. That's what I really feel."

Born in Germantown, Mr. McGriff played the piano at 5 - both parents played - and later took up drums, vibes, bass and saxophone. He served in the Army in Korea during the Korean War, and after his discharge he was a member of the Philadelphia Police Department for two years, riding with a motorcycle unit while moonlighting with a band.

In 1956 he bought his first Hammond B-3 organ. He studied at the Juilliard School in New York, Combs College of Music in Philadelphia, and Temple University.

"Jimmy absorbed the sound of the B-3 organ," Pitts, who will perform at a memorial for Mr. McGriff on Sunday, said yesterday in an interview.

"And he brought something to it that was unique because of his church background, that was about what was in your spirit, and what he had to share. He had that hallelujah gospel feeling."

In 1961, McGriff and his trio recorded Charles' "I've Got a Woman," a song that was also a hit for Elvis Presley and would go on to be the basis for Kanye West's 2005 hit "Gold Digger."

He would go on to record almost 100 albums and perform in clubs and at concerts all over the world. He played with Count Basie, Wynton Marsalis and Dizzy Gillespie, and toured and recorded with Buddy Rich for two years in the '70s.

Mr. McGriff grew up in Germantown and graduated from Simon Gratz High School. He later lived in New York City; in Connecticut, where he boarded a horse; and in Newark, N.J., where he owned a supper club. For the last 20 years he had lived in Voorhees.

In 1994 he married Margaret Norfleet. Though his multiple sclerosis was diagnosed in 1996, Mr. McGriff performed until last year, his wife said, and recorded four albums since becoming ill, including McGriff Avenue in 2002 and Live at Smoke in 2006. In 2004 he performed at an organ summit in Toronto and toured Japan with Joey DeFrancesco and Reuben Wilson. He got around on his motorized scooter and "played his buns off," his wife said. "Audiences loved him."

Mr. McGriff had fun and was easygoing when he was doing a gig, she said. When he wasn't working he was a homebody, she said. He ate breakfast at a diner where everyone knew his name, then spent the day playing games and creating music on his computer.

In addition to his wife, Mr. McGriff is survived by two children from previous relationships, Donald Kelly and Holiday Hunter Hankerson; his mother, Beatrice; a brother; two sisters; and five grandchildren.

A musical tribute to Mr. McGriff will begin at 4 p.m. Sunday at Harold O. Davis Memorial Baptist Church, 10th Street and Roosevelt Boulevard, Philadelphia. Friends may call from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday at the Bradley Funeral Home, 601 Route 73 S., Marlton, and after 9 a.m. Tuesday at the church, where a funeral will begin at 11 a.m.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact music critic Dan DeLuca at 215-854-5628 or ddeluca@phillynews.com.

http://www.philly.com/philly/obituaries/19309804.html

Edited by Ron S
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Are we both referring to the Arista sides? They just come off as overtly commercial to me; as in "This is what everybody's doing, so I might as well do it, too." I could be totally wrong. And by no means do I think any less of Young for doing it (gotta feed the kids). A lot of jazzers did it. But the music, to my ears, doesn't stand up on its own, outside of that context. McGriff's does.

Just my two cents.

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