Carla Bley Band with Johnny Griffin - Misterioso

The great bop saxophonist Johnny Griffin died a year ago today at the age of eighty. He was a member of Thelonius Monk's group in the mid-to-late fifties, and was an obvious choice for inclusion on the tribute album That's The Way I Feel Now: A Tribute to Thelonious Monk. (This was one of the series of tribute albums that producer Hal Willner masterminded in the eighties--others were for Kurt Weill, Leonard Cohen, et al.) But the Willnerian master stroke was to pair Griffin with Carla Bley, brilliant/eccentric jazz composer and arranger, who provided a lush big band arrangement of the Monk song "Misterioso." Griffin fits perfectly in the center of this piece, and grounds everything with a solo that somehow manages to be both relaxed and intense.

The whole piece is nearly nine minutes long, and provides a sort of epic journey in miniature. Bley was a skilled and intelligent arranger long before she did this work--for me it's pure pleasure to savor every detail. But whatever else goes on, Griffin's solid bop is the heart.