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Johnny Griffith

Johnny Griffith is a multi-Juno Award nominated saxophonist, composer and producer who has played and recorded with numerous artists including Don Thompson, Hawksley Workman, Jeremy Pelt, Ernesto Cervini’s Tune Town, Charlie Hunter, The Wailers, Alex Dean, Laila Biali, Al Henderson Quintet, Brandi Disterheft and Terra Hazelton to name a few, and is a member of the popular Canadian funk/hip hop group, the Pocket Dwellers. He has toured extensively across Canada, the United States, and Europe performing at all the major Canadian music festivals as well as several international venues including the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.  Johnny co-leads the Griffith Hiltz Trio with guitarist Nathan Hiltz arriving on the scene with the 2009 album “Now & Then”, produced by and featuring Toronto jazz legend, Don Thompson. Their debut album was selected by Terry McElligott at Jazz FM 91 as Jazz Album of the Year and was nominated for a Grand Prix du Jazz from the Montreal Jazz festival. Their second more experimental release, “This is What You Get”, was produced by Canadian cult icon Hawksley Workman and sat at #1 on the National Jazz charts for three weeks in 2013. Currently in production is the GHT’s new album “Atlantean Emerald” based on the greatest movie never made (penned by Johnny and Nathan), complete with a full instrumental arsenal of guitars, bass pedals, MOOG and Prophet synthesizers, saxophones and bass clarinet. Stay tuned... The Johnny Griffith Quintet is the artist’s first solo venture and launched with “Dance with the Lady” in 2015. Featuring NYC’s Jeremy Pelt on trumpet, the album was the featured release on WBGO Jazz radio New Jersey. Johnny continues with the soon to be released “The Lion, Camel and Child”, again with Pelt, previewing at the TD Toronto Jazz Festival 2018.  Most recently Johnny has been composing and performing with his new collective with bassist Artie Roth and drummer Chris Wallace with a focus on the tradition and style of the great trio recordings like Sonny Rollins’ “Way Out West” and “Freedom Suite” or Joe Henderson’s “State of the Tenor”. In 2015, Johnny created the non-profit independent jazz label G-B Records and has gone on to produce and/or engineer Nathan Hiltz’s “Songs Poetic”, Whitney Ross-Barris “Bright Lunch Trio”, Graeme Stephen’s “Projector Trio”, Adrean Farrugia/Joel Frahm’s “Blued Dharma, and Chris Wallace’s “Many Names”.

Johnny is also an active film and television composer. He has composed the scores for the films Still to Go and The Recipe - both films have appeared in Toronto Film Festival, the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival, Montreal World Film Festival and the Vancouver International Film Festival. He is also a freelance composer for the Bell/CTV media group.

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5
Album Review

Griffith Hiltz Trio: Arcade

Read "Arcade" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Johnny Griffith, saxophonist and synthesizer-ist for the Griffin Hiltz Trio (aka: GHT), says, in the midst of his midlife crisis, that “I can't afford a motorcycle, but I can make music." The music that he and his cohorts made, Arcade, draws its inspiration from classic '80s video games and movie themes. The music includes deep grooves and electro soundscapes, and brings to mind late'50s / early '60s exotica, plugged in and shifted into the space age. “Movie Theme ...

18
Album Review

Johnny Griffith: Dance With The Lady

Read "Dance With The Lady" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Canadian saxophonist and composer Johnny Griffith is a multi-JUNO Award nominee and leads a vibrant quintet of first-call musicians on their debut recording entitled Dance With The Lady, comprised of nine stellar originals in the contemporary jazz mold exhibiting influences from the great Joe Henderson, Kenny Wheeler, Andrew Hill and Anton Weber among others. Grounded in a strong jazz tradition, the music seems to flow from a post-bop to a modern main stream direction encompassing a good share of creative ...

7
Album Review

Johnny Griffith: Dance With The Lady

Read "Dance With The Lady" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Can jazz stay the inventive course while remaining true to its swinging precedents and historical framework(s)? This record makes the argument that it can. Toronto-based saxophonist Johnny Griffith has put together a program of original music that's firmly grounded in tradition, yet his approaches aren't rigidly dogmatic in nature; in other words, this record speaks to the past, but it's not another present-day date that's simply dressed in yesteryear's fashion(s). Slamming grooves and swing rhythms share living ...

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"Griffith plays first from his heart, not his head. The result is – rarity of rarities – an album of original compositions that swings from start to finish." Tim Wilkins WBGO Radar

“Saxophonist Johnny Griffith demonstrates here why he is one of the premier jazz players in Canada and the world, playing the instrument with energy and sophistication” Edward Blanco AllAboutJazz

"A kinetic player, pushing toward a raw expressionist edge, showing affinities with John Coltrane and the ancestral energies of rhythm & blues." Stuart Broomer - Whole Note Magazine

Primary Instrument

Saxophone

Location

Toronto

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Johnny is currently a member of the music faculty at the Humber College School of Creative Performing Arts. There he teaches private lessons and ensembles in the Bachelor of Music program as well as the Jazz Certificate Diploma program. Johnny also teaches in the Humber Community Music program where he teaches ensembles, private lessons and theory. As well as teaching at Humber, Johnny has taught privately from his home in west Toronto for the past fifteen years. Skype lessons are now available for prostpective students who do not live in the Toronto area and/or who wish to study in the comfort of their own home.

Clinic/Workshop Information

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Arcade

G-B Records
2021

buy

Lion, Camel & Child

G-B Records
2018

buy

Dance With The Lady

Self Produced
2015

buy

Dance With The Lady

Self Produced
2014

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Last Say

From: Lion, Camel & Child
By Johnny Griffith

The Zissou Predicament

From: Dance With The Lady
By Johnny Griffith

Videos

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