The fastest tenorman of them all, Griffin could get around the horn with incredible velocity: on Introducing Johnny Griffin (1957), the bewildered Max Roach appears to be shouting at him to slow down. He came out of Chicago at 17 to join the Lionel Hampton band, and then went with his fellow sideman Joe Morris into an R&B group which enjoyed much success at the end of the 40s. Hard bop was really Griffin's thing, though. After he came out of the army in 1954 he led his own bands in Chicago and worked with Thelonious Monk, rarely if ever outfoxed by the pianist's unpredictable ways. Griffin recorded extensively for both Blue Note and Riverside, the albums not always well-shaped or organized, yet every one of them holds some exhilarating passages where the explosive tenor sound all but pounces on the listener. It helped that Griffin was accurate to the point of meticulousness: very few jazz improvisers have handled both ends of the executive spectrum with such finesse. In 1960, he formed a two-tenor partnership with Lockjaw Davis which produced plenty of the expected fireworks as well as musical insight, their Monk treatments working especially well. He found a warm welcome in Europe in 1963, and chose to stay on, eventually settling in France, where he has been ever since. A sinewy little man with a crafty smile, Griff has played much as he pleases since then, still making new appearances on record – a recent duo session with Martial Solal worked particularly well – and touring both in Europe and the US. He has slowed down a little, but he's still not exactly Ben Webster.

Biography from Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia (2005).

If you'd like more information, check out The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz (2002) or The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (2007), both of which are still in print.