The Little Giant: The Story of Johnny Griffin

Johnny Griffin, the Little Giant from the South Side of Chicago, has remained a top jazz saxophonist throughout his 53-year playing career. He has spent 42 years in France and the Netherlands, and is recognized internationally as a major jazz star with a readily identifiable style, an immense improvisational flair and an unfailing capacity to swing. As jazz writer Brian Priestley has observed: "Griffin is one of the fastest and most accurate ever on his instrument".As well as expressing himself with great verve and vitality through his tenor saxophone, Grifin is an articulate, witty and entertaining conversationalist with an unending flow of anecdotal reminiscences about his days with Lionel Hampton, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, the Clarke-Boland Big Band and the variety of small groups he has fronted over the years.The Story of Johnny Griffin is a light-hearted, irreverent and uninhibited look back at the jazz life of one of the music's most consummate musicians and one of its most colourful and entertaining characters.Hennessey, Mike is the author of 'The Little Giant: The Story of Johnny Griffin', published 2008 under ISBN 9780955090851 and ISBN 0955090857.