Search - Jimmy McGriff :: Starting Five

It doen't get any better than this folks -

Will Flannery | Berkeley, CA | 12/18/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This album features two of the best blues sax men to ever pick up horns, David 'Fathead' Newman, and Rusty Bryant. On this album, both are in top form. Of the two, Bryant is the more traditional player. He plays straight out of the blues idiom with a fat heavily nuanced sound that brings the blues right to you with the first note he blows. Fathead played with Ray Charles during Charles' phenomenal early years. He knows the traditional blues, and he plays a sophisticated harmonic angle that is totally his own and is as right as it gets.I've spent a lot of time listening to the cut 'BGO'. It's a blues and features a tenor battle between Bryant and Fathead. Bryant leads off with a fine twisting solo, but Fathead comes in playing his off angle arpeggios with ferocious drive and precision, so, you expect that Bryant will have to fold. Instead Bryant comes back with some screeches that sound like a cat having its tail stepped on, and he ices Fathead. Chalk up one for the old school.The tune 'Hittin the Jug' is a slow Bb blues. The sine qua non of the tenor sax. Both players play fine solos, but Fathead's is extraordinary. My favorite moment follows his third lick, when he runs down to the lowest note on the horn, and a sister in the studio is heard to say 'yeah'. Just like when he played for Ray.The rhythm section is absolutely fine. Bernard Purdie on drums, with Jimmy McGriff handling the organ and bass."