Jimmy McGriff - Greatest Hits

Jimmy McGriff | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 17, 1997)
• Original Release Date: June 17, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Blue Note Records
• ASIN: B000005H9J
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,718 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #49 in Music > Indie Music > Jazz > Boogaloo

Editorial Reviews

No description available.
Genre: Jazz Music
Rating:
Release Date: 0000-00-00
Media Type: Compact Disk

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the good music!, August 24, 1999

By 

Edward Gordon Brown - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimmy McGriff - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

Jimmy McGriff is a blues authority when at the Hammond Organ. All the songs here are top-notch. One thing that mislead me a bit at first was the fact I had bought this CD basically because of the "I have a Woman" song. I had heard this song on an old audio tape of my father's "Teen Beat '56" and it had been labeled as "I have a Woman (part one)"...yet the song with this name on this CD is completely different. It is actually called "Kiko". I defy anyone to listen to "Kiko" and just stay put... You just can't. It's an infectious song, it urges you to get up and dance to it. Even if this CD had only one song on it- this one- I'd buy it. This song alone is worth the price of admission.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riff With McGriff, April 18, 2001

By 

J. E FELL "boogaloojef" (Carterville, Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jimmy McGriff - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

This is an excellent compilation of Jimmy McGriff's sides from 1963-1971. This includes material from Sue, Veep, Solid State, Blue Note and Capitol. Jimmy McGriff is one of the funkiest blues organ players around. If you are familiar with him through his recent Milestone releases then you already know what I'm talking about. This compilation contains some of his earliest material. It includes his two biggest hits "I Got A Woman" and the extremely funky cut "The Worm." Some of my favorite cuts include a cover of James Brown's "Ain't It Funky Now", "Blue Juice", "Criss Cross" and "Gospel Time." The material from his funky Solid State years is much appreciated because those albums are out of print at the moment. The only drawback to this set is the short liner notes and scarcity of session listings. It will be interesting for fans of his Milestone material to compare his playing on more recent sessions with his earlier sides. Fans of gritty blues/soul jazz organ will find much to enjoy with this set. I hear he has a new Milestone release in the works for this year and I can't wait.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Falls Just Short Of A 5-Star Rating, September 3, 2007

By 

AvidOldiesCollector (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jimmy McGriff - Greatest Hits (Audio CD)

For a "greatest hits" album this one comes a lot closer than some - and yet it too falls just short by omitting one charted hit from among the six he had between 1962 and 1968. That selection is M.G. Blues which, as the B-side of All About My Girl [# 12 R&B/# 50 Billboard Pop Hot 100 in early 1963] peaked at # 95 Hot 100 itself. Hard to understand why distributors do this.

A trained classical musician [violin], his interest in jazz and the organ began while attending Temple University in Philadelphia where, so the story goes, a future comedian named Bill Cosby helped arrange some local gigs. At some of those sessions he met - and learned from - the great Jimmy Smith and Milt Buckner.

In 1962 he secured a recording contract with Sue Records, and in October that year hit the charts with the Ray Charles classic I've Got A Woman - Parts I and II, which rose to # 5 R&B/# 20 Hot 100 in November.

His second hit was the above-mentioned All About My Girl/M.G. Blues, which he followed in June with The Last Minute Pt. II which peaked at # 99 Hot 100 b/w Pt. I. About a year later Kiko topped out at # 79 Hot 100/R&B b/w the old standard, Jumpin' At The Woodside [not here].

With his brand of music [along with contemporaries like Brother Jack McDuff] shunted aside by the British Invasion, insofar as chart success was concerned, it would be over four years before he re-emerged briefly with The Worm which, early in 1969, made it to # 28 R&B/# 97 Hot 100 b/w Keep Loose [not here].

And although that would be it in terms of hit singles, Jimmy nevertheless maintained a strong following with his many LPs for Capitol and Groove Merchant, among others.

In addition to the skimpy liner notes and lack of sessionography, the omission of that one hit and two of the B-sides has to result in the loss of one star in my opinion.