Ten Hi-Energy Cuts from the Sue Records Vault
McGriff's second Sue album delivers pure organ-combo energy without apology or pretense.
One of Mine arrived in 1963 as McGriff's second outing for Sue Records, a label willing to let him stretch into the funkier, grittier side of organ jazz that the major labels were still treating cautiously. The session captures him in full command of his instrument—not the church organist or the cocktail-lounge fixture, but the street-level player with something to prove. Ten tracks, all of them driving, none of them precious. This is the sound of a working band locked into what they do best: McGriff laying down grooves that sit somewhere between blues and soul-jazz, the rhythm section pushing hard, horn players filling the spaces with just enough personality to stay interesting without cluttering the mix.
What makes One of Mine distinct from safer organ recordings of its era is the complete absence of apology. There's no attempt to dress things up for a broader audience. The hi-energy approach that AllMusic reviewer Michael Erlewine noted isn't frantic or show-offy—it's just what happens when you have a player who understands that an organ's job is to propel a room forward, not sit back and wait for permission. McGriff had already grasped what took other organists years to learn: the groove is the point, and everything else hangs on it.
For anyone new to McGriff, this is a better entry than his more polished later recordings. It's not his peak—that came later—but it's honest work from a player still building his reputation on the one thing that mattered: making people feel the beat.
