Customer Reviews

Jimmy McGriff - Greatest Hits

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Nice discussion is going on between two gentlemen abouit that fine tune "Kiko".

Mr? CivWarGuy (U.S.)says the track issued here is not "Kiko" but just another version of "I've got a woman", while on this side of the Ocean Mr. Laurence Upton from UK says: this is "Kiko" it is just like "I've got a woman".

Well Mr? CivWarGuy from U.S. is right,on "Greatest Hits" the track indicated as "Kiko" is indeed another outing of "I've got a woman".

The real "Kiko"is a lot slower than "I've got a woman", you'll find the real tune on: "Toast to Jimmy McGriff's Golden Classics" and on "The Best of the Sue Years 1962-1965".

On both you'll also find "I've got a woman", of course no compilation of Jimmy McGriff can do without that.

So find out for yourself by clicking the player on this site.

"Greatest Hits" is a very fine compilation of Jimmy's Golden Years.

Although there are a lot of youngsters(like DeFrancesco) playing the organ, after the champ: Mr. Jimmy Smith, there is only one #2 and that is certainly Mr. Jimmy McGriff.

Very fine are also: "At the Apollo" and if you like Smith's hit record "Walk on the wild side" you sure got to have "Tribute to Count Basie", what a band and what organplayer: Jimmy McGriff!

Arnold van Kampen, jazzcritic, writer, the Netherlands.

This is my first online review and so I am giving this excellent recording a 4 star rating....in case something better comes along. This CD has really grown on me and after 12 months just gets better and better to listen to. The first 2 tracks are the most funky tunes I have heard (Charles Earland's Mighty Burner is also in that league). I am excited though because this is genre of music that is a real learning (and enjoying) curve for me.

This offering contains a good representation of McGriff's work. I became a fan in the early 60's when he came out with "All About My Girl." The title tune is here along with "I Got a Woman." I have always felt that McGriff's best work (at least for me) was done in those early days on the Sue label. The blues drenched jazz on the Hammond B-3, particularly with the shuffle rhythm, was so pulsating and driving. You just hated to hear it end. Unfortunately, in this CD at least one song never even started--one of the best McGriff did--and that is "Kiko." That song was so popular that all the juke boxes in clubs had it and so did I. What you hear on the CD version is not "Kiko," but another rendition of of "I Got a Woman." "Kiko" is a swinging shuffle; what is on the CD under that title is not "Kiko." Man, did I miss that tune on here! CivWarGuy

During the early 60s, jazz organists like Jimmy Smith, Jack Mcduff, and Shirley Scott were already pretty well established having many albums released featuring the new style Smith invented using 3rd percussion on a hammond b3 to get a saxophone sort of pop sound. McGriff sort of went a different way in his music adding sort of a funk/groove feel to his music that was a new style that was starting to emerge at the time. McGriff was a different kind of jazz and still used percussion, instead he played soul and had quicker bass beats to his music than usual jazz organists at the time. McGriff had a few mild hits with songs like All About My Girl and I've Got A Woman. This helped him develop his own style that distinguished him and his songs were all soulful and funky, similar to Booker T and the MGs. The only difference being in the use of percussion McGriff used like jazz organists. McGriff was essentially a jazz organist who played modern r&b styles. This compilation includes funky hard to find songs that defined McGriffs style in the 60s and 70s.

This is a compilation of short Jimmy McGriff blues/soul tracks. There's no information about other musicians, the liner notes are uninformative--if you like McGriff (and based on these tracks, he's non-essential), go for another album.

Jimmy McGriff pretty much set out his stall with his first Sue label single, Ray Charles' I've Got A Woman, played on the infamous Hammond B-3 in full-on groovy bluesy soul-jazz style. It was a top 20 hit in 1962, a top 5 R&B hit and the title track of his first album, which also included the full version of follow-up single All About My Girl, included here, and perhaps his best known number. This collection is on Blue Note but was originally recorded for Jell, Sue, Veep, Solid State, Blue Note and Capitol, up to 1971; seven singles and 10 album tracks, all steeped in funk and fervour. Three of the tracks have audience noise and clapping but sound as if they may have originated as studio recordings as the music fades under the applause.

From a musical Philadelphia family (Harold Melvin was a cousin), Jimmy McGriff grew up with gospel but was inspired to learn Hammond organ after seeing Richard "Groove" Holmes, who later became a tutor, as were Jimmy Smith and others. After leaving Sue, he worked with producer Sonny Lester for all the other tracks collected here. The album includes Kiko, which sounds like a re-write of I've Got A Woman, and although he explored electric jazz-funk for a while in the seventies he never strayed far from what he called blues organ music, which is what he played the best

this is the real deal.Jimmy MCGRIFF is one of the Baddest CAts ever to rock an ORGAN.his stuff just Smokes all the way through.top Notch Musicianship.i was bumping to this Last Summer during a cook out and the Grooves on here have Plenty of Sauce.