1958 · Album
Branching Out
Riverside · Featured musicians: Nat Adderley (cornet), Johnny Griffin (saxophone), the Three Sounds
Two Horns, One Argument, One Album
Adderley and Griffin made for an exciting frontline, even when they weren't entirely on the same page.
Branching Out pairs Nat Adderley's cornet with Johnny Griffin's tenor saxophone over the Three Sounds' rhythm section, and the result is exactly what you'd expect from putting two strong-willed horn players in a room together: energy, tension, and not always perfect agreement about what the tune should sound like. Griffin comes in hot and fast, his tone aggressive and his lines tumbling over themselves with restless momentum. Adderley, by contrast, has a warmer touch and a more deliberate phrasing. When they're locked in, the contrast works. When they're not, you can hear them pulling in different directions.
This album sits somewhere in the middle of Adderley's catalog—not a breakthrough moment, but solid work from a musician comfortable enough in his own voice to stand next to a player as forceful as Griffin without disappearing. The Three Sounds provide a capable platform, steady and professional, which is exactly what the session needed. The pairing works best when the material gives each horn room to assert its own personality rather than asking them to blend seamlessly. That's the nature of what's happening here: complementary approaches rather than unified vision.
Branching Out is the kind of album that rewards a listener who wants to hear how two different temperaments negotiate the same jazz language. It's not pretending to be something it isn't, and it doesn't hide the friction. That honesty has its own appeal, even if the results are uneven.
Who's playing
Where next?
More by Johnny Griffin
All 43 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
