McGriff technique, etc...

["Mark Longo" <longo@zk3.dec.com>]

        Hi all,

        I was not working New Years Eve for the first time in years and so for 
a 
change I had the pleasure of going out to see someone else play.  And, man, did 
I 
hit the jackpot.  It seems that Jimmy McGriff was playing at a local club 
(Scullers in Boston) with Hank Crawford (alto sax man).  I had reserved my 
tickets in advance and was VERY pleasantly surprised to be seated at a table 
not 
three feet from the organ!  I was just to the left of the organ and slightly 
behind it and I could see every move McGriff made.  Needless to say, I learned 
a 
few things, which I'll be glad to pass on here.

        But first, his setup was a little odd.  He used a Hammond-Suzuki XB-3 
with an integrated Hammond GM-1000 tone module (a Hammond-Suzuki synth module), 
played through a Leslie 122 pretty side out (directly behind himself and 3 feet 
from me) and a small Leslie 302 on the other side of the stage behind the 
guitar 
player.  The 122 was mic'd into a small PA.  He had the XB-3 programmed with 
presets that used the GM-1000 on the upper manual non-drawbar presets.  He used 
the GM-1000 trombone, strings, trumpet, and vibes sounds, which he layered 
underneath the upper manual organ sound on different presets, and used the 
trombone most often.  He used the horn sounds to double horn lines with the sax 
player, and also used it during many of his solos (!).  He used the strings to 
back a singer who sat in on 3 tunes.  His decision to mix horns with the 
hammond 
sound will offend purists, and while I'm no purist I thought it sounded a bit 
cheezy during the solos myself; though when used in combination with the sax 
lines it was effective.  On the lower manual he used the "B" drawbar preset 
exclusively (no GM-1000).

        The band was a 4-piece with guitar, drums, and sax, plus Jimmy, who 
kicked pedals.  In the past we've talked about pedal technique on this list, 
and 
whether all the bass lines are played on pedals, or if the pedals are simply 
used 
atonally to give some low frequency support beneath the left handed bass lines. 
 
Well, here's what McGriff does: he plays all bass lines with his left hand as 
1/4 
note scales with a root or fifth pedal tone being tapped at the beginning of 
each 
note.  He sets the pedal drawbars to 80 and by just tapping the pedal tone at 
the 
start of each note in his walking lines he gets the effect of the thump at the 
beginning of a note played on an upright bass.  For the most part the pedal 
notes 
he played were harmonically correct, though by watching carefully (I could 
never 
have heard this by ear) I saw that he sometimes missed the pedal he was aiming 
for or sometimes hit two pedals at once.  It was clear that the harmonic 
correctness of the pedal tones was secondary in the sound, though by eye I 
think 
over 80%-90% of the pedals he played were harmonically correct.  Also, he 
always 
played the pedals with the front part of the foot (never the heel). 

        His right foot was constantly moving on the swell pedal as one would 
expect.  He usually moved the pedal small amounts, except during ballads where 
his swells were frequent and had lots of dynamics.  He did not use the 
technique 
much where the player increases the volume on upbeats and decreses it on 
downbeats.  More frequently he would increase the volume on the frontbeat (1 & 
3 
in a measure) and back off on the backbeat; maybe this leaves a bit more room 
for 
the snare drum?

        His glissandos were in infrequent but when he did them he ran his left 
hand from left to right along the top of the manual with his fingers pointing 
to 
the right and his hand flat on the manual and parallel to the front of it.  In 
the past I've more frequently seen organ players do glisses by running their 
palm 
along the top front edge of the keys with the palm at an angle to the manual, 
rather than palm flat on the keys and parallel.

        For the drawbar watchers on the list he used 888000000 when he was not 
using a top manual preset and 838000000 for comping on the lower manual.  I 
never 
saw him change the drawbars after the first tune.  The XB-3 sounded nice 
through 
the 122, if a shade too clean for my own taste.  It sounded quite a bit like 
the 
XB-3 you can heard Joey D playing on "Live At The 5 Spot" or on his first album 
with John McGlaughlin.  It sounds very pure and is truely a letter perfect B-3 
clone, but in my own subjective opinion there is still some very subtle aspect 
of 
it that lacks a little bit of warmth, though I could have been imaginging it.  
The stage volume was very low and the 122 could have been jacked up a bit to 
warm 
things up.

        He used slow leslie almost exclusively, with fast leslie just at the 
end 
cresendo of a few of the tunes.  He never used the chorus.

        He wound up the set with a VERY soulful and bluesy reading of "America 
the Beautiful" that nearly moved me to tears.  This power of this tune really 
translates to the organ, especially in McGriff's hands, and there wasn't a 
GM-1000 tone module in sight on this one.  Sweeeeeeeeeet!

        Happy New Year,
        Mark

=======================================================================
  Mark Longo                                    Digital Equipment Corp. 
  longo@zk3.dec.com                             Nashua, NH
  87 8300 020