"[Basie] was the father of Harlem musicians. He wouldn't teach you nothing wrong. If you did something wrong, the changes I would play, he would just say, 'That's wrong. You don't wanna do that.' . . . I liked that."
In 1962 McGriff was at a Trenton, N.J., club playing his instrumental arrangement of Ray Charles' hit "I've Got a Woman," when a talent scout for a record company offered him a recording contract. The record was a hit and led to a contract with Sue Records.
McGriff's first album, "I've Got a Woman," included Walter Miller on guitar and Richard Easley on drums and produced another hit, "All About My Girl."
Over the years McGriff played with many musicians, including Buddy Rich's band, and founded his own supper club in Newark, N.J. Early in his career he played a Hammond B-3 organ; during the '70s he played electric keyboards; later he played a Hammond XB-3 organ.
The core of his music remained the same.
"They talk about who taught me this and who taught me that, but the basic idea of what I'm doing on the organ came from the church," McGriff said in biography posted on All About Jazz. "That's how I got it, and I just never dropped it."
In addition to his wife, McGriff is survived by two children from a previous relationship: a daughter, Holiday Hankerson, of Newark, N.J; a son, Donald Kelly, of Philadelphia; his mother, Beatrice McGriff, of Germantown, Pa.; two sisters, Jean Clark, of Amherst, Va., and Beatrice Evans of Philadelphia; a brother, Henry McGriff, of Germantown, Pa.; and three grandchildren.
A funeral service will be held June 3 at 11 a.m. the Harold O. Davis Memorial Baptist Church, 4500 N. 10th Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19140.
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jocelyn.stewart@latimes.com
