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(More customer reviews)I won't review this CD as a whole since many others have already. But in all these reviews I note scant mention of Johnny Griffin. In this live session from that now defunct little hole-in-the-wall, the Five Spot, Grif shows why he is considered the 'fastest tenor alive.' He's also the most passionate. His solos on this session are consistently amazing in their dexterity, imagination, and sheer emotional charge. He often moans ecstatically as he blows flourish after flourish of blue fire, yet never takes himself too seriously. He truly GETS Thelonious: the wry twinkle of Monkish humor. The second cut, 'Blues Five Spot,' is one of the greatest tenor solos of all time (See my Listmania, "Great Tenor Sax Solos.") Astonishing speed and melodic invention with the trio are followed by an un-accompanied cadenza of clean blues logic, topped off by the theme from Popeye the Sailor Man. Sonny Rollins was more magisterial and conscious of his greatness when he played with Monk; Trane was more esoteric and, well, heavy; but no one played Monk with more understanding than Johnny Griffin: they were friends for life. Grif knew the secret of Monk. The Master wasn't avant garde and he wasn't heavy: he was funky, blue, and full of laughter. Despite the primitive quality of the recording, and the idiots at the bar who keep dropping their glasses, this sizzling July evening in 1958, in the hippest of New York bars, at the heart of a by-gone era, is captured for all time here in one of the GREAT live jazz recordings.
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