condition (record/cover): NM /  NM

With original sticker.

They called him the Little Giant and the fastest tenor in the world, and both were fair. Johnny Griffin arrived at Blue Note in 1956 with a technique that let him play anything at any tempo, and the temperament to make that entertaining rather than merely impressive. Introducing Johnny Griffin puts him with Wynton Kelly, Curly Russell and Max Roach, which is to say a rhythm section that could go as fast as he wanted, and the results are joyful in a way hard bop debut albums rarely are. The ballads show the other side: a big, slightly hoarse tone and a real feeling for the melody underneath all that velocity.

Blue Note pressing. Griffin at the outset, before Monk, before Eddie Lockjaw Davis, before the long European exile.