[Dixielandjazz] Jimmy McGriff Obit

[Stephen G Barbone]

Below is McGriff's NY Times obit.  He was very popular in the  
Philadelphia area, being a native son. He and Groove Holmes had some  
great nightclub appearances here in the 1960s. Great player, nice man,  
and note the operative words below: "He played jazz as dance  
music . . . . ."
Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband

May 28, 2008 - NY TIMES - By Ben Ratliff
Jimmy McGriff, Jazz and Blues Organist, Dies at 72

Jimmy McGriff, who since the early 1960s was one of the most popular  
jazz and blues organists, died on Saturday in Voorhees, N.J. He was 72  
and lived in Voorhees.

The cause was complications of multiple sclerosis, said his wife,  
Margaret McGriff.

Like other jazz organists of his time, Mr. McGriff spent much of his  
career working in the clubs of the East Coast organ circuit, including  
the Golden Slipper in Newark, a club he owned in the early ’70s. He  
played jazz as dance music, whether it was music by Count Basie,  
Charlie Parker, Ray Charles or James Brown. Over swing, shuffle and  
funk rhythms, he played in a focused blues language that built gospel- 
like intensity through his solos.

Mr. McGriff was born in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia,  
which became a jazz organ mecca in the 1950s and ’60s. His father  
played piano, and Mr. McGriff learned it from an early age; he went on  
to play saxophone and bass before settling on the Hammond organ, which  
became a common instrument in small-group jazz instrument only in the  
mid-’50s, largely because of the example of another Philadelphian,  
Jimmy Smith.

During the Korean War, Mr. McGriff served as a military policeman;  
returning home, he spent more than two years on the Philadelphia  
police force. Encouraged by his friend Richard (Groove) Holmes,  
another Philadelphia organist, he took up the organ, playing around  
Philadelphia, sometimes with the tenor saxophonist Charles Earland,  
who himself switched over to the organ soon thereafter and became  
another one of that instrument’s great players.

His first hit, in 1961, was a 45-r.p.m. single of Ray Charles’s “I’ve  
Got a Woman,” a local jukebox success that was featured on the radio.  
It led to a full album for the Sue label; it also quickly led to  
another hit single, “All About My Girl.”

 From the mid-’60s through the 1970s, his records were produced by  
Sonny Lester, on the Solid State, Blue Note and Groove Merchant  
labels; his own 1971 live album, “The Black Pearl,” as well as another  
with the blues singer Junior Parker, were recorded at his own club in  
Newark. He also played with Buddy Rich’s band for a stretch in the  
late ’60s and early ’70s.

In 1986 he started working regularly with the saxophonist Hank  
Crawford, making records and touring; he continued to record as a  
leader for the Milestone label and made his last recording in 2006, a  
live album done at the Manhattan jazz club Smoke. He stopped playing  
in 2007.

In addition to his wife, Margaret, Mr. McGriff is survived his mother,  
Beatrice, and brother, Henry, both of Philadelphia; his sisters, Jean  
Clark of Amherst, Va., and Beatrice Evans of Philadelphia; two  
children, Donald Kelly of Philadelphia and Holiday Hankerson of the  
Newark area; and five grandchildren.




Steve Barbone

www.barbonestreet.com
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband