Johnny Griffith Quintet - The Lion, Camel & Child (GB RECORDS December 7, 2018)

Wonderful new modern jazz album from Toronto saxophonist Johnny Griffith and his quintet, entitled The Lion, Camel & Child.  It's the second release from  Griffith’s all-star quintet - a band made up of of four of Toronto’s leading jazz lights, along with the legendary New York trumpeter Jeremy Pelt. 

For this release, Griffith drew inspiration from the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche - speci cally his book Three Metamorphoses. As Griffith explains, “Metamorphoses is concerned with what propels each new phase of human growth, so it seemed fitting to frame this as a suite – each track individual unto itself, yet when listened to as a whole representing the arc of the personal struggle to know more and be more.” 

Central to the album is the suite that illustrates these phases and the qualities that define them: The Lion, virtuous and rebelious; The Camel, courageous and dutiful; and The Child, playful and free of spirit.

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, 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.  

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.  

In 2015, Johnny created the non-profit independent jazz label G-B Records and has gone on to produce and 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 also is a freelance composer for the Bell/CTV media group.

Johnny Griffith  will be releasing The Lion, Camel & Child on Friday, December 7th, 2018 on GB Records.