Customer Reviews

Soul Survivors

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One of the ultimate injustices is the heedlessness leading to the out-of-print status of recordings such as this, one of the most moving, poignant, exemplary albums by the pair. The consolation is that it's been repackaged in one of those "Best of Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff" anthologies. But that's being twice-removed from the ever incandescent, luminous flame of the original. You might say the same of the downloads. Spend the money on "Because of You," then do what will surely present itself as a necessity: purchase the album.

No one had a warmer, more poignant sound than Hank Crawford. Few alto players could match his technique with alternate fingering and his altissimo feats (listen to him trill upward an octave and more above the horn) but always at the service of musical meaning. No one played (or sang) ballads slower (assuring listeners of getting the most for their money). But he could swing with the best of them, and here he's in the company of the best. Jimmy McGriff is a more consistent version of jimmy Smith, never lunging out of the pocket, attending to all of the orchestral and dynamic possibilities of the B3 in support of his musical alter ego.

The support of George Benson and Bernard Purdie is frosting on the cake, grits with the ham 'n eggs.