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Grab This! finds tenor Johnny Griffin in a soul-jazz mood, which is greatly aided by the organ of Paul Bryant. They are joined by guitarist Joe Pass, bassist Jimmy Bond, and drummer Doug Sides for nice workouts on several originals and a couple of standards. The band seems confident and relaxed throughout this recording, injecting everything it touches with a healthy dose of the blues. Griffin's tone is rich and full throughout, but is most striking on Ellington and Russell's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and the self-penned original "Grab This!" Bryant has been given special guest status, and his style is perfectly matched with Griffin's. He also wrote the wonderful "Offering Time," a slow blues piece with a strong groove. While Pass' role here is more supportive, he turns in several fine solos, as on "63rd Street Theme" and "Offering Time." What is perhaps most striking about Pass' role here is his versatility: he appears as comfortable playing soul-jazz as he would playing hard bop or swing. Bond and Sides supply the steady rhythm needed to keep this soul-jazz moving along. It's amazing that five guys were able to get together and cut this album for Riverside in one day during the summer of 1962. Like Carmell Jones, Griffin moved to Europe in the '60s, lowering his profile in the United States. Grab This! is a fine album, and serves as a reminder of Griffin's lovely tenor sound. ~ Ronnie Lankford Jr., All Music Guide
Axl: GNR album out this year
In NYC for a four-night run starting Friday, enigmatic frontman tells radio show that long-awaited Chinese Democracy will hit stores in '06.
No, really, he means it this time.
Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose told a NYC radio show this week that Chinese Democracy, his band's 10-years-in-the-making album, will be in stores before the end of the year.
This is certainly not the first time Rose has made such declarations, but given the band's four-night run at NYC's Hammerstein Ballroom, which starts Friday, and its upcoming European tour, it appears GNR might be close to taking its post-Slash/Duff/Izzy sound public.
"Sometime this fall or late fall ... it will be out this year," Rose said when asked about the album on Eddie Trunk's syndicated radio show.
Rose appeared on the show after former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, a cohost of the show, called Rose's cell phone and patched him through to the studio.
It was one of the first interviews Rose has given since GNR's failed 2002 comeback tour, which was abruptly scrapped in the middle of the tour after Rose canceled several shows, including a show in Philadelphia for which he simply didn't show up.
"Can you tell people why the tour ended at that point?" asked Trunk.
"Umm, no, not exactly," Rose replied, declining to discuss it.
Rose's newfangled band--it has featured numerous lineup changes over the years that Chinese Democracy has been recorded--could be heard rehearsing in the background during the interview.
Rose has said his band for the NYC shows and the European tour will largely be the same as the one for the 2002 tour, although lead guitarist Buckethead left in 2004. Rose has not said who the guitarist is, but it is not a former GNR member.
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