Jimmy McGriff, 72; organist popularized soul-jazz sound

Jimmy McGriff called himself "the king of the blues organists." (jack vartoogian/frontrow photos/file 2001)

WASHINGTON - Jimmy McGriff, a jazz and blues organist who helped popularize the funky soul-jazz sound of the 1960s, died Saturday at Voorhees Center Genesis, a nursing facility in Voorhees, N.J. He had multiple sclerosis and was 72.

From the early 1960s, when he scored his first hit with an instrumental version of Ray Charles's "I've Got a Woman," Mr. McGriff was a widely acclaimed performer who unabashedly called himself "the king of the blues organists."

Part of a long tradition of jazz organists from Philadelphia, he earned worldwide fame for his distinctively earthy sound on the Hammond B-3 organ and for his ability to send listeners racing to the dance floor.

As a child, Mr. McGriff began to play the organ in church, but he tried several lines of work before settling on the organ in his early 20s. By then, Philadelphia was renowned as a hotbed of organ talent, with such masters as Jimmy Smith and Richard "Groove" Holmes. After hearing Holmes play at his sister's wedding, Mr. McGriff sought his advice and spent six months mastering the unwieldy Hammond B-3, which has two banks of keyboards and dozens of pull-out stops, as well as pumps and pedals for the feet.

By 1960, Mr. McGriff was working in local combos, and two years later his performance of "I've Got a Woman" reached number five on Billboard's R&B chart. He followed it with other top-selling albums, including "Blues for Mister Jimmy" (1965) and "A Bag Full of Soul" (1966).

He was a conservatory-trained musician who never lost the common touch. As he peered through his glasses at the audience, he would smile and turn up the heat.

"I learned something a long time ago," he said in a short film directed by Daniel Peacock. "When you go into a club to work, look for the guy or the woman that's not smiling, then play to that person. Once you've got that person, you've got the whole club."