Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis: Ow! Live At The Penthouse

Tenor saxophonists Johnny Griffin & Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis co-led a fairly successful quintet that recorded ten albums for Prestige Records and Riverside Record’s Jazzland imprint between September 1960 and February 1962. The band’s last recording session, in May 1962, was an experiment in balladry which went unissued until I had the pleasure of compiling Pisces, released for the first time in 2004. The same group that recorded Pisces, with Horace Parlan on piano, Buddy Catlett on bass, and Art Taylor on drums, hit the road that spring, and the producers at Reel To Real Records have unearthed an hour of music from that tour. Ow! Live At The Penthouse is another set extracted from the cache of tapes made from the original radio broadcasts from the club on Seattle’s KING-FM, and the music is just as great as you’d expect from this crew. Nobody energized a band quite like drummer Taylor, and it’s a total joy to hear him, starting with the terrifying tempo of the two-tenor classic Blues Up and Down, complete with the drums and horns trading the fastest four bars I’ve heard in some time. Dizzy Gillespie’s Ow!, Ary Barroso’s Bahia, and Edgar Sampson’s 1935 tune Blue Lou round out the first show. It’s an intense dose of hard bop, and if you heard it on the radio on May 30, you surely would have wanted to make the scene at the club to experience the quintet in person. The group is back on the air one week later with a different batch of tunes, once again kicking off their half-hour with a burner, Second Balcony Jump, reprising the Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons feature with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in the mid-Forties. A lengthy exposition of How Am I to Know? is next, followed by a ballad feature for Griffin, Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady. The set concludes with Lester Young’s Tickle Toe, a popular blowing vehicle over the years and the Griffin-Davis unit does not disappoint with a forceful version powered by Art Taylor’s potent drumming. Co-producers Zev Feldman and Cory Weeds have put together another exemplary package. The 28-page booklet includes plenty of photos and memorabilia, liner notes by Ted Panken, plus reminiscences by Bob Wilke, who produced the original broadcasts, and Charlie Puzzo, Jr., son of the Penthouse Club’s proprietor. Also featured are observations by pianist Michael Weiss and drummer Kenny Washington, both of whom played with Griffin, and saxophonist James Carter, who opines on two of his musical heroes. A total gas from start to finish, Ow! is not to be missed.
Reel To Real RTR-CD-003; Johnny Griffin, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis (ts) Horace Parlan (p) Buddy Catlett (b) Art Taylor (d); Seattle, WA, May 30, 1962* or June 6, 1962; Intermission Riff*/ Blues Up and Down*/ Ow!*/ Spoken Introduction*/ Bahia*/ Spoken Introduction*/ Blue Lou*/ Second Balcony Jump/ Spoken Outro/ How Am I to Know?/ Spoken Introduction/ Sophisticated Lady/ Spoken Introduction/ Tickle Toe/ Intermission Riff; 58:44. cellarlive.com