Look Who it Was Random video

Johnny Griffin & Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis - Sophisticated Lady (Alternate) 1962

1,225 views · Published 29 November 2011 · 4:11 · Indexed 12 November 2026

Channel: RoundMidnightTV · 2011 · Music

Watch on YouTube

When Johnny Griffin and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis entered a New York studio with producer Orrin Keepnews on May 3, 1962, they did some things that were unusual for the two-tenor team. They played mostly ballads, they didn't engage in any tenor battles and — most surprising of all — they didn't perform together on any of the tunes. Griffin was featured on four songs, Davis on another four. The same rhythm section — Horace Parlan, bassist Buddy Catlett and drummer Art Taylor — was always present, but Parlan played piano on the songs featuring Griffin and celeste on the songs featuring Davis. For whatever reason, the performances remained in the can for 42 years; they weren't even mastered until 1966, and they finally saw the light of day when Fantasy released Pisces in 2004.

"Sophisticated Lady" is a jazz standard, composed as an instrumental in 1932 by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills, to which words were added by Mitchell Parish. The words met with approval from Ellington, who described them as "wonderful — but not entirely fitted to my original conception."  That original conception was inspired by three of Ellington's grade school teachers. "They taught all winter and toured Europe in the summer. To me that spelled sophistication".

More from this channel