Griffin at His Most Inventive and Free
By 1978, Griffin had nothing left to prove—this session shows him playing purely for the joy of it.
By the time Johnny Griffin recorded Bush Dance, he'd already spent more than two decades establishing himself as one of the tenor saxophone's most commanding voices. This wasn't a debut statement or a desperate bid for relevance. It was something rarer: a master musician in his maturity, still hungry, still finding new angles on a sound he'd perfected long ago. The session pairs Griffin with Michael Weiss on piano, Dennis Irwin on double bass, and Kenny Washington on drums—a working band that clearly understood his language, responsive and tight without any sense of routine.
What makes this record matter isn't novelty; it's clarity of purpose. Griffin is inspired and quite creative throughout, according to AllMusic reviewer Scott Yanow, who called it one of his great achievements. The saxophone playing cuts with that particular Griffin sharpness—the tone bright and penetrating, the phrasing economical but never sparse. Weiss, Irwin, and Washington give him space to breathe and room to push, and Griffin uses both. There's no fumbling here, no experimental dead ends. The music swings with the ease of players who know exactly what they're after.
Bush Dance isn't the place to start if you're new to Griffin, but it's exactly where a committed listener should go next. It catches him doing what he does best—playing hard, thinking clearly, making every phrase count. By this point in his career, that was achievement enough.
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