Fly Dude

McGriff 's best album ever!:
All of the great Hammond B-3 organists have particular interesting musical periods in their career tied to certain record companies. Common denominators for many organists are - Blue Note Records, Prestige and Verve - as the three most significant record labels in the recorded history of jazz organ. But there are some interesting exceptions to explore. Mr. Blues Organ - Jimmy McGriff - made some of his best albums between 1971 - 77 on the Groove Merchant (GM) label, headed by the legendary producer and jazz organ fan, Sonny Lester. Thanks to Japanese P-Vine Records, the fabulous McGriff album "Fly Dude" from 1972 is eventually remastered to the highest quality with original cover art, just like the old days with vinyl. For your information - nearly all tunes on the overlooked "Fly Dude "are released on various compiled CDs thanks to a completely hopeless re-issuing policy from the GM master tapes owners. Using blues, soul jazz and a dash of funk as the building blocks for this album, McGriff demonstrates a varied and highly successful choices of tunes and fellow musicians - Ronald Arnold on tenor saxophone, George Freeman and John Thomas on guitars, and Marion Booker Jr. on drums. Bop standard "Yardbird Suite" is by far the best version ever recorded on the Hammond B-3 organ where McGriff play some of the baddest improvisation and left hand bass lines with great support from the two guitarist (hard to say who's playing what). Even the Jimmy Smith's tune "Jumping the Blues" gets a highly respectable treat by the combo before they dive into a medium fast version of "Everyday I Have The Blues" by Memphis Slim. In addition to "Yardbird Suite", McGriff original "Cotton Boy Blues" are the album highlights - this slow blues which churchy gospel sound is a pure joy for 8 minutes. "Butterfly" and "The Groove Fly" are high pressure organ funk like it should sound in the `70's. Great album, great band, great recording, bad price! My verdict - McGriff's best album ever.