Jimmy McGriff

Modern times have taught us the pulpit and the playa often collide in the strangest of ways, in these strangest of days.  But that sound, the righteous tone of the Hammond B-3, first heard by many in the pews, made its way to the party.  And for some, it was the other way around.  If you close your eyes, you could tell if you were in a white church or black church by the way you heard the organ.   I remember my mom whispering to me to sit still, we were in church.  I was fidgety, hoping, indeed praying that the organist would bust out with that organ growl, that churning and burning.  I first heard that growl on my parent’s hi-fi, that’s a record player, from Jimmy McGriff.  He has gone on to that jazzy blues bar in the sky.

A Korean War vet, Jimmy was a bass player till he heard Groove Holmes play at his sister’s wedding.  And that’s when he set out on that wave of organ riffs to become the second Jimmy on the organ, learning from one of the first Jimmy’s students.  Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff. Both organ-rocking Jimmys are gone now.

Jimmy McGriff was a Julliard trained musician who kept his first B-3 at avante pianist Archie Shepp’s house.  More musical genealogy.  His first hit, “ Foxy Due, featured a sax player, Charles Earland, who would also switch it up for a B-3.  Each one teach one.  The village raised some rumbling B-3 players that time.

Jimmy was invited to record the instrumental version of Ray Charles, “ I Got A  Woman” , that became a chart topping hit, and pushed his music across the listening divide, black and white ears grooving in crossover heaven.

For years Jimmy mashed soul saving, sinful swing on that B-3 all across the musical landscape.  In the  '90s, that sound became a retro foundation and Jimmy saxophonist David "Fathead" Newman and funk drummer Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, McGriff formed the Dream Team.  The legends toured mainly in England, heating up clubs and festivals like a barbeque charcoal when it’s best, not fire flame, just heat, even and hot, cookin.

That B-3 sound kept its heat down through the musical decades:  from Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, to Charles Earland, Larry Young, Lonnie Liston Smith, and today Robert Randolph and Amp Fiddler. And we rock back and forth to Jimmy McGriff’s echoes, heard in many churches on Sunday.  The rockin praise, the legacy of his style.  Rest in Peace.