1997 · Album
Road Tested
Recorded 1997 · Milestone · Personnel: Hank Crawford (saxophone), Jimmy McGriff (organ)
Two Veterans Prove the Blues Still Work
Hardass, down-home, blues-drenched organ trio-plus-sax grooving at its most potent.
By 1997, Hank Crawford and Jimmy McGriff had been making records together for decades, and Road Tested is exactly what that partnership sounds like after all those miles — comfortable, unpretentious, and completely sure of itself. This is their seventh album under both their names, and there's no apology in the playing. Crawford's tenor saxophone sits right in the pocket with McGriff's Hammond B3, trading blues licks and soul-deep grooves that don't need anything fancy to land. The rhythm section keeps everything tight and swinging, and the whole session breathes with the ease of musicians who know each other's moves by heart.
What makes this record matter is that it proves something worth proving: that stripped-down, blues-based organ-and-sax records could still be made in the late nineties without irony or nostalgia hanging over them. Richard S. Ginell at AllMusic heard it as a potent reminder that bluesmen were still allowed to do this work their way. The funk grooves are real, the blues feeling is genuine, and neither Crawford nor McGriff sounds like they're playing for a museum.
This isn't a record for people trying to understand jazz history. It's a record for people who want to hear two musicians who've earned their place playing exactly what they know how to play, and doing it well enough that there's nowhere left to hide.
Who's playing
Where next?
More by Hank Crawford
All 27 albums →
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
