Where Jimmy McGriff's Groove Began
McGriff's first album is great — hi-impact early McGriff is still the best, and this is the album that started it all.
Jimmy McGriff walked into the studio in 1962 with Morris Dow on guitar and Jackie Mills on drums, three players who understood exactly what they were after: raw, swinging organ jazz with enough grit to fill a room. McGriff had spent years playing in bands and backing vocalists before deciding to lead his own date, and it shows. There's no hesitation here, no feeling-out process. The organ trio format was economical and direct — no horns to overshadow the instrument, just groove and muscle.
What makes I've Got a Woman (1962) work is its refusal to be precious about anything. McGriff plays with a full, woody tone, heavy on the bass pedals and the lower register, pushing the beat harder than many of his contemporaries. Dow's guitar cuts through with a sharp, percussive attack, trading ideas with the organ rather than staying decorative. Mills locks in tight, driving the tempo with authority. The interplay feels lived-in, the kind of thing that happens when musicians have played together enough to know where the next moment is headed without discussing it first.
This was McGriff's debut on record, and it arrived as funk-forward organ jazz was starting to splinter off from the cooler, modal trends dominating the era. AllMusic reviewer Michael Erlewine called it great, and the album did more than introduce McGriff — it established the template he would refine for years to come. If you're new to him, this is the obvious place to start, the moment when everything clicked into place.
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