Billboard : 12/07/1959
Three stars

Johnny Griffin‘s strong blowing has won him a sizable following. In this set, his tenor sax leads a sextet in efforts which are also dexterous and imaginative. Griffin seems to have grown quite as effective on cerebral and emotional numbers such as the minor key Lonely One heard here, as on the swift-moving high-voltage type of jazz. Fortunately, this new album provides both types of music, so he has a field day.

—–

Boston Traveler
John McLellan : 12/10/1959

Johnny Griffin, billed as “The Little Giant of the Tenor Saxophone,” is currently raising the roof (and probably a few eyebrows) at Storyville.

The “little” in his billing refers, as it did in the case of “Little Jazz” Roy Eldridge, to his modest stature, scarcely more than double the length of his sax.

The “giant,” on the other hand, derived from what may be a compensatory drive to more than make up in playing what he lacks in size.

The result, at any rate, is a tenor saxophonist who can serve, for the purposes of this discussion, as an excellent example of one important trend in jazz today. In fact, to many, this is the “mainstream” of jazz.

They talk about the jazz of the 20s and 30s as “hot” jazz. And the post-bop period as “cool” jazz.

Well, you might call this “fierce” jazz.

Griffin – and John Coltrane, Lee Morgan and many others – are the inheritors of the bop revolution of the 40s. The style started by Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and friends.

But they also represent a reaction to what they undoubtedly feel was the sterility of West Coast jazz. An often angry reaction.

Perhaps I’m reading too much into what I hear. But it seems to me this is the anger of frustration. The frustration of having had to mark time in the “rhythm and blues” bands while the West Coasters had the spotlight.

There is a cavalier attitude towards the audience that borders on the insulting. Griffin, I couldn’t help noting, not only failed to announce any of the tunes he played (a failing he shares with many others) but he played with his side to the audience as though they didn’t exist.

But I think there is also a kind of musical frustration in this new “fierce” jazz. The frustration of not being able to do even more on their horns than they do. And heaven knows they have more technique and stamina and sheer enthusiasm than many of their predecessors.

But they appear bound to hammer on the outmost limitations of what their minds and fingers can do. And so we subjugated to shrieks and squeaks beyond the top of the horn. And ripping arpeggios and scales that strive for Coltrane’s “sheets of sound.”

And all of this takes place at tempos that no longer “swing” or “cook.” They have to “smoke.”

There’s no question about the technique of someone like Johnny Griffin. Or his inexhaustible imagination. In one number, which lasted well over a half hour, he played enough for a dozen numbers. There were regular choruses accompanied by the trio, there were “strolling” choruses with only bass and drums, and even some virtuoso playing completely alone – all in one number.

But though these men may well play the jazz of tomorrow, I don’t feel they’re playing it today. Their very “ferocity” is an indication of the one thing they really lack – maturity.

Griffin is accompanied by three local musicians – Paul Neves, piano; Alex Girin, bass; and Dick Banta, drums.

—–

Minneapolis Star Tribune
Charles Hanna : 03/06/1960

This package of rather exceptional jazzmen never seems to get off the ground. The solos are competent, but not stirring. Griffin (tenor saxophone) is coherent, but dull. The same is true for a favorite trumpeter, Blue Mitchell. It’s a Little Giant in several respects.

—–

Oakland Tribune
Russ Wilson : 12/13/1959

Tenorist Johnny Griffin displays a maturity not shown in earlier outings as he leads a sextet through a half-dozen modern jazz tracks that include three interesting charts by a young Chicagoan, Norman Simmons. Trumpeter Blue Mitchell, trombonist Julian Priester, pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Sam Jones, and drummer Albert Heath – who is recorded way too loud – are Griffin’s colleagues.

—–

Pittsburgh Courier
Harold L. Keith : 01/02/1960

Johnny Griffin has been labeled as “The Little Giant” on this new sextet release on Riverside. This, for Griffin, is a rather routine offering, full of cliches and understatements.

He has played much better on other albums, but on this he fails to come up to his level such as he did on a memorable Blue Note release on which he blew Smoke Stack and Ball Bearing in company with the nonpareil, Art Blakey.

Lifting the record to the two-star level are the matter-of-fact presentments of Blue Mitchell, Julian Priester and Wynton Kelly.

It is quite possible that the engineering job done on this recording has something to do with the effect it has on the listener. The sound is thin in spots and not in keeping with the usual quality of Riverside releases.

—–

Providence Journal
Philip C. Gunion : 12/27/1959

Johnny Griffin plays a tenor sax with depth and feeling and he shows up to good advantage in The Little Giant, a new Riverside album.

Griffin is not alone in his art on this job. He has the admirable talents of Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Juliant Priester, trombone; Wyton Kelly, piano; Sam Jones, bass, and Albert Heath, drums.

This is a good, fleshy group which gets a great deal out of its material. And the material chosen for this session is rather off-beat and refreshingly new for a jazz album. Griffin and his associates sparkle, particularly Kelly whose piano is an insistent guide to the horns at all times.

—–

Roanoke Times
Art Hill : 04/02/1960

National reputations are made in New York or Los Angeles and most Chicago musicians must go there for recognition.

Recording contracts are the key to success in jazz and only two major companies, Mercury and the Argo-Chess-Checker group, have headquarters in Chicago.

So 32-year-old Johnny Griffin takes his tenor saxophone eastward to the Atlantic coast to cut The Little Giant for Riverside, home address, NYC.

The point is that Griffin was well established as a major artist in Chicago long before Riverside heard of him and should have been recorded earlier.

The album is a good one, heavily dependent on compositional variety and somewhat uneven in quality.

Besides Griffin, the talent roster includes Blue Mitchell, trumpet; Julian Priester, trombone; Wynton Kelly, piano; Sam Jones, bass; and Albert Heath, drums.

By far the most interesting selections are the three composed by Norman Simmons.

—–

San Francisco Chronicle
Ralph J. Gleason : 01/10/1960

A hard-swinging LP with good solos from pianist Wynton Kelly and trumpeter Blue Mitchell. The rhythm section is swinging and Griffin himself is a tenor specialist in funk, which is to say he gets that low down feeling at all times.

—–

Down Beat : 02/04/1960
Don DeMichael : 4.5 stars

This is fist-clenched, head-shaking jazz filled with exclamation marks; but it is not so hard-hitting that one is a nervous wreck after listening to it. No, this LP has a stimulating effect like very few albums on today’s market. This is one of those rare items that elicit from the listener a smile, a nod, a chuckle, and a grunted, “Yeah!”

Griffin is probably the most consistently provocative and interesting of the hard-sell tenor men. His playing is straightforward and virile and never descends to the noodling level as does some of the blowing of his muscular contemporaries. He displays a Don Byas root or two, most clearly on Babs Gonzalez‘ lovely Lonely One. It’s about time that jazz historians give Byas credit for his sizable influence on modern tenor.

Three compositions in this album, Refractions, Message, and Venus are the work of Chicagoan Norman Simmons. Two of them, Refractions and Venus are head and shoulders above most originals being played today. Besides composing these tunes, Simmons has done a fine job of scoring them for the three horns. Let’s hope we hear more from this talented young man.

Mitchell, Priester, and Kelly solo well, but Griffin overshadows them with his searing, slashing horn.

The best blowing takes place on Message and Griffin’s 63rd St. A most interesting track is Lonely, played by tenor, bass, and drums. Heath has a nice mallet solo on this semi-samba side.

The album would have gone all the way in the rating if the intonation had been better and if Heath had restrained himself a little; but even with these drawbacks, Little Giant is one heck of a swinger.

—–

Liner Notes by Orrin Keepnews

Johnny Griffin doesn’t reach to more than five and a half feet, and there’s no extra poundage on his wiry frame. In that sense, he’s on the small side. But the way to get the real measure of Griffin’s size is not to look at him, but to listen to him. For Johnny’s music is big and powerful – full-toned, muscular and certainly one of the most exciting tenor sax sounds ever heard.

This album should make it clear that this “Little Giant” is getting bigger all the time. There was almost a year and a half separating the recording of this LP from Griffin’s most recent previous effort as a leader. In that time. things have been happening to Johnny. Perhaps most importantly, he spent several months with Thelonious Monk at the Five Spot Cafe in New York, and as more than one musician has discovered, working with Thelonious on a regular basis can prove to be both a challenging and an enriching experience. After that, Griffin has been doing a good bit of travelling – quite literally from coast to coast – on his own. And during all this intervening time, the evidence on this record would seem to tell us, there has been a deepening and maturing of what has always been a very considerable jazz talent.

Johnny has long been recognized as a strikingly effective ‘blowing’ musician, and as an incredibly dexterous and agile top-speed handler of his horn. On this occasion, his improvisational skills and his agility are every bit as apparent as ever, but there is also apparent a more thoughtful approach, a fuller use of the varied tools available to a jazzman. For one thing, Griffin, who has at times felt that working in combination with other horns tended to hamper him, has constructed for himself a sextet that plays with exceptional rapport. For another, he has come up with intriguingly off-trail group of tunes – particularly three by the young Chicago pianist Norman Simmons, who has scored them for three horns in a refreshing and intricate vein that leads to a full-bodied ensemble sound and to unusual frameworks to set off the solos by Griffin and his associates.

In addition to Simmons’ compositions, there is a surging blues (63rd Street Theme) that Johnny has of late been using as his theme; Griffin’s own happily raucous version of an old standard, Playmates; and an exotically moody treatment, for tenor, bass and drums, of a rich new tune by Griffin’s friend Babs Gonzalez.

With such material to deal with, and in the company of some of the most talented young musicians in the East, Johnny is at his imaginative, glowing best, displaying all ol the musical “muscle” that has always been his strong point, but combining with it also a well-developed sense of form and control that convinces the Griffin fans here at Riverside that this album represents an important stride in the career of one of the most formidable tenormen of our day.

Griffin was born in April, 1928, in Chicago (where he and his wife and children still make their home). He joined Lionel Hampton‘s band in 1945, three days after graduating from high school. After two years with Hampton, he co-led (with trumpeter Joe Morris) a group that also included drummer Philly Joe Jones. Johnny built a most solid reputation in Chicago during the early and middle 50’s, then spent 1957 with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and a good part of ’58 with Monk.

Griffin’s colleagues on this LP have an extremely impressive list of working credentials. The highly-regarded young trumpet star, Blue Mitchell (first brought to Riverside’s attention by fellow-Floridian Cannonball Adderley), has been featured, since late ’58, with Horace Silver… Julian Priester, a new face and sound among trombonists, first appeared on this label on Philly Joe’s Blues for Dracula album (RLP 12-282); Max Roach heard him on that disc and promptly invited Julian to join the Roach quintet… That flawlessly swinging and earthy pianist Wynton Kelly, has worked with Dinah Washington and Dizzy Gillespie, and since late ’58 has been a prominent part of Miles Davis’ group… Testimony that Sam Jones is one of the most dependably forceful of bassists is readily available from such leaders as Dizzy, Monk, and Cannonball… Albert Heath, younger brother of the M.J.Q.’s Percy and among the most impressive of the new drummers, is with J.J. Johnson‘s group.