Tiny Grimes

DrJ · September 12, 2009

I picked up a used vinyl copy of SOME GROOVY FOURS a couple years back, really relaxed, fun recording, excellent guitar work. And of course I enjoy the sides with Bird. But I need more Grimes, watching these suggestions attentively.

JSngry · September 12, 2009

I've yet to find a copy of Tiny's Muse LP. It looks interesting.

You mean this one?

MR+5012.jpg

I've yet to find a copy of Tiny's Muse LP. It looks interesting.

You mean this one?

MR+5012.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ml_Yj8KBM7A/SOyV...0/MR%2B5012.jpg (since the image doesn't show)

DrJ · September 12, 2009

Jim your link isn't working (for me at least) - I think this is the Muse Grimes LP?

Never heard it, nice line up though.

mjzee · November 16, 2009

In the booklet for Proper's "Art Tatum - Piano Grand Master," they discuss Tiny's work with Tatum:

A chance meeting between Art Tatum and guitarist Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart at a New York after-hours spot sometime in 1943 led to the formation of the Art Tatum Trio, a combo that was to bring Art his greatest commercial success so far. The piano, guitar and bass combination had become a strong commercial proposition with the success of the Nat King Cole Trio. The Nat King Cole Trio certainly perfected and popularised what became known as the "Cocktail Combo", but they did not invent the combination. Combos like The Three Peppers and The Three Keys were there before the Nat King Cole Trio and Pete Johnson and Clarence Profit had recorded in that format in 1939 but the success of the King Cole Trio must certainly have inspired Art to form his Trio in early 1944.

Tiny Grimes and Slam Stewart were working together as a duo around New York at the time. Guitarist Grimes had started out as a self-taught pianist and drummer in amateur shows around Washington D.C. during the mid 1930s. He played piano and danced at the Rhythm Club in New York in 1938. That same year he started to play four-string guitar, again self-taught, and joined the string group Cats and a Fiddle in 1940. He soon left the Cats and a Fiddle to form a duo with bassist Slam Stewart, half of the legendary duo Slim and Slam, after Slim Gaillard had been called up for army service. Tiny Grimes was the weakest link in the Art Tatum Trio, something he confessed himself in Stanley Dance's "World of Swing" when he stated, "We never rehearsed, everything was made up on the bandstand. Why in the world did those two guys keep me? I knew I was the weakest thing in there, but after we started working I'd go downstairs during every intermission with my guitar and work on whatever song we'd been playing, trying to catch up with them as best as I could. I did that every set, every intermission, and they would have to come and get me. I think that's the only thing that kept me with them. They knew I was trying so hard..... I tell you it was an honour playing with them, but playing wasn't too much enjoyment. It was a struggle, because nobody would teach me anything. I had to catch it as it went by, and it was so fast all the time."