The Songbirds Archives

Francine Griffin is making her solo recording debut at an age when most "undiscovered" singers are filing away their 8" by 10" glossies for good. The Song Bird is also a first for the distinguished, independent Chicago jazz label, Delmark: its initial vocal jazz release in a 45-year history.

Possessing a terrific sense of time, great taste in repertoire, and a singularly unique "sound," this Chicago resident is no jazzette wannabe. "You might hear me sing a phrase here or there like Ella, Sarah, Billie, or Betty," she writes in the disc’s liner notes. "[But] I too have my own creative identity. That’s the way it should be." Despite this "confession," hardly a riff or lick here appears lifted from these or any others of the usual songbird suspects. If Griffin cribs from anyone, it’s saxophone players; nearly every number concludes with her vocalizing a little sax-like fillip. Griffin is twice as adventurous as many singers half her age, with a friendly, immediately identifiable, slightly Billie Holiday-like – heavy on head, light on chest tones – alto instrument that manages to get the job done despite its somewhat limited range. When she transposes downward it’s not out of fear but because that’s where she wants to go.

By the early 1960s Griffin had amassed an impressive dossier of appearances – mostly sitting in – with the likes Charlie Parker, Sonny Stitt, Roy Eldridge, Jimmy Heath, Benny Bailey, Miles Davis, and Dizzy Gillespie. Perhaps her most interesting credit was singing with vocalese pioneer King Pleasure, circa 1970, when he needed a vocalist to do the female parts on Red Top and the classic Moody’s Mood for Love on live dates. Previously, those shoes had been filled by the likes of Betty Carter, Annie Ross and Blossom Dearie. But after that, Griffin stopped singing for more than a decade.

The first time I heard the unfamiliar Griffin on the radio I assumed she was young and new to the "scene." It was only after I’d made some inquiries that I learned she’d been around the block a few times. In her sixties (?), she just might just be the oldest jazz singer to have made a recorded solo debut (she’s been a guest on a few other recent Delmark releases). The attractive cover photo, however, depicts a lovely African-American woman "of a certain age" betraying remarkably little wear and tear.

Francine Griffin’s story is the time-worn one about: jazz singer gets a healthy, regional career going; jazz giants come through Cincinnati, Ohio and encourage her to make the leap from little pond to big one; but marriage and motherhood call, and she hangs it all up in favor of familial obligation. She credits an entertainer from a somewhat earlier era, Alberta Hunter, as her inspiration for coming out of the retirement and getting back, fifteen years ago, to the business of singing.

For back-up she’s called upon the services of some of the Second City’s finest musicians: rapidly emerging pianist, Willie Pickens, arranger-trombonist Paul Schmidt; and how about those righteous tenor and alto sax solos by Hank Ford and Mike Smith on Two Little Words and If I Were a Bell? The former is an otherwise unforgettable piece of (apparently) original material. Why open with this as opposed to something more familiar like You’ve Changed, You Won’t Forget Me, or It’s Crazy? Or the other obscurer number, With a Twist of the Wrist? Maybe it’s Griffin’s way of laying claim to a song of her own. As if to say, "You’ve never heard this before; you’ve never heard me before." Then she moves on to the standard, If I Were a Bell, and puts her brand on that one, too.

Intonation is sometimes a problem with Griffin, not for lack of serviceable pitch but due to a tendency to occasionally paint herself into a corner. As on Body and Soul, somewhat modeled on the classic Coleman Hawkins, with its double time bridge. For a few bars, so tangled does she become in a morass of triad substitutions, it looks as if she might never get back home. In short order, though, she returns to the chord. It’s a small enough price to pay for all the musical playfulness. Pronunciation also proves a minor problem, especially in the form of a dropped "S" at the end of a word. But who’s counting? The vocal homage to the art of the saxophone; the catch of the breath at the end of You’ve Changed; the shout of joy at the conclusion of 4 minutes and 20 seconds of a scatted Anthropology; and many other moments like this make it hard to hold back on the hyperbole. She calls herself Francine "Song Bird" Griffin. Songbirds is pleased to be (nearly) sharing the singer’s nickname and album title with her.

The tracks for The Song Bird, equally divided between ballads and swingers, were recorded seven years apart, in 1991 and 1998. One wonders why it took so long to get this to market. The good news is that Griffin only got better in the ensuing years: the five 1998 cuts definitely have the edge. Her later voice is more assured, placed, this time around, in a slightly lower register.

Griffin’s is a comeback tale of a never-was who, nevertheless, should’ve been. In phase one of her career, in the mid-1950s, she was a fixture on the so-called Black Chittlin’Circuit, during its final, faltering days, touring the Midwest and South with the likes of Little Jimmy Scott and Big Maybelle. Then she settled in Chicago and became part of the city’s legendary South Side musical scene. But "after marriage and becoming the mother of several children," the liner notes inform, "Francine’s career was put on hold."

And how has she kept her jazz skills honed and chops in shape these last fifteen years? Among other noble deeds, by helping to introduce, under the aegis of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, "The Art of Swing and Be-Bop" in high schools. What a snap course! What a teacher! The art of jazz singing is alive and well and living in the heartland of America.

Tracks

Two Little Words (Moore)
If I Were a Bell (Loesser)
You've Changed (Fischer, Carey)
Anthropology (Bishop, Gillespie)
Inside a Silent Tear (Dearie, Blackwolf)
It's Crazy (Rogers, Fields)
Don't Be on the Outside (Kelly, Watts, Wyche)
I Remember Clifford (Golson)
Will You Still Be Mine? (Adair, Dennis)
It Don't Mean a Thing (Ellington, Mills)
With a Twist of the Wrist (Graham)
You Won't Forget Me (Goell, Spielman)
I Hadn't Anyone Till You (Noble)
Body and Soul (Green, Heyman, Sour)

Produced by Robert G. Koester and Paul Serrano. 66:45.

Delmark Records website