Grab This! – Johnny Griffin

A laid-back medium swinger with a classic funky hard-bop sound. The A sections of this 32-measure song begin with a stop-time call-and-response figure similar to Bobby Timmons' Moanin', though the melody "call" pickups are rather simpler. The rhythm section goes to a 4-feel on beat 2 of the fifth measure. The changes are quite obvious and simple throughout, with the classic "walk up" from B♭7 to Bdim7 occurring in the second pair of stop-time hits, as well as twice in the bridge. The melody on the sixth measure of the A and C sections is written with dotted eighth note/sixteenth note rhythms; though Griffin also exaggerates the swing elsewhere, the phrase here really emphasizes the repeated notes on the beat, with the offbeats being essentially embellishments.

On the recording, the head is taken out from the bridge, after which a slight variation of the A section is played at least twice; the recording fades out during the second repeat. There is no reason, however, not to play the head out from the top if you want —or to play the last eight measures only once.