Brian Lynch - Bolero Nights

Published on Jul 12, 2012
Trumpeter Brian Lynch performing "You've Changed" with:
Phil Woods on Alto Saxophone and,
Zaccai Curtis on piano.

Phil Woods (1931-2015)

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Phil Woods, an alto saxophonist who idolized Charlie Parker, married his widow, developed one of the most signature sounds on his instrument in post-war small-group and big-band settings, carried on the bebop tradition long after others had moved on, became an exquisite composer-arranger and was perhaps best known for his iconic solo on Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are, died yesterday (Sept. 29). He was 83. [Photo of Phil Woods above by Milt Hinton]

As an artist, Phil had an admirable and elevated level of intensity, determination and ambition—not for himself but for jazz, which he championed religiously throughout his life. Starting in the 1950s, Phil recorded relentlessly as a leader and sideman, and was in solid demand as a soloist by big bands that wanted his urgent, crane-like bluesy sound soaring over the top of their ensembles. Yet Phil never felt he was better than anyone and was available to everyone. He simply put his faith in his passion for bebop without compromising or giving anything less than everything he had. To encounter Phil was to engage a gruff Teddy bear. He was too cuddly to be curt but he could be impatient with those who weren't hip to jazz or didn't seem to acknowledge that the music was special. For Phil, jazz was an all-in calling, a badge of honor, his duty to humanity and, most of all, a daily responsibility to honor the greats who preceded him. I'll miss Phil.

Here's my interview with Phil in 2009, with all four parts combined followed by nine stunning audio and video clips...

Phil Woods is blunt. And moody. And passionate. And fastwith a comeback line. Like many jazz greats, the alto saxophonist speaks the way he plays. His articulation and his instrumental attack share much in common. Both are refreshingly direct and raw with emotion. Whether Phil is talking or playing, you feel transfixed, as though a powerful invisible hand has reached out to hold you fast. From his earliest professional playing jobs, Phil has projected this unmistakable yearning sound on the alto sax that is drenched in blues and struggle. [Pictured: Phil Woods in 1956]

Starting in the mid-1950s, Phil's urgent sound soared on some of the finest recordings of the decade. During this period he recorded masterpiece solos with Dizzy Gillespie, Gene Quill, Neal Hefti, Gene Krupa, Quincy Jones and Michel Legrand. Phil also was frequently compared to Charlie Parker, especially after he married Parker's widow, Chan. Throughout his eight-decade career, Phil has made a practice of standing out, whether on straight-ahead jazz recordings or while adding solos to Billy Joel's Just the Way You Are and Steely Dan's Doctor Wu.

In my interview with Phil, the legendary saxophonist talks about how he accidentally came to the alto saxophone, the significance of his first music teacher, the real reason he took music lessons at age 15 with Lennie Tristano, and meeting Charlie Parker on the floor of a 52d Street club in the late 1940s:

JazzWax: When you’re digging in on a solo, what are we hearing—anger, love, pain, what?
Phil Woods: That’s for you guys to figure out. That would be immodest for me to say and beyond my abilities. As a musician, I’m trying to touch people. If that works, great. I can’t tell you what makes that work. I have a thing on my wall here that Beethoven said: "The vibrations on the air are the breath of God speaking to man's soul. Music is the language of God. We musicians are as close to God as man can be. We hear his voice, we read his lips, we give birth to the children of God, who sing his praise. That’s what musicians are." I love that.

JW: Have you always felt so passionately about music and the saxophone?
PW: I was put on the planet to be a musician, primarily as an alto player.

JW: You came to the instrument almost by accident.
PW: Yes. When I was 12, in 1942, I had an eccentric uncle, Norman, who was a mortician. He had a saxophone, and when he was in bed upstairs dying, I found it under my grandmother's sofa. I pulled out the case and opened it. When I saw all that shiny metal, all I could think of was melting it down to make toy soldiers. Then I closed the case and put it away.

JW: Did you wind up with it?
PW: When my uncle died, it was left for me in his will. I put it in my closet, and a year or so went by. Then my mother insisted I shouldn't let the saxophone go to waste, that I should take at least one lesson. So I opened the phone book and found a teacher randomly in there. His name was Harvey LaRose, and he changed my life.

JW: How so?
PW: Your first teacher in anything is so important. If that person decides you have talent and wants to touch your soul, wonderful things can happen. Mr. LaRose was an incredible inspiration. Mr. LaRose was the man.

JW: What was it about Mr. LaRose that made you work hard? 
PW: He taught me songs and pushed me to embellish. I was getting improv lessons at age 13. He gave me the four top pop songs of the week to play, and today, of course, they're all standards. I was raised on the American songbook, which is a pretty strong force there…

JW: But what made him special, as a teacher?
PW: If I could define it, we could sell it [laughs]. It’s magic. It’s not to be dismissed with a few comments. He was a great human being. He wasn’t a great improviser, by the way. But he was a composer. He played the alto, clarinet, violin, guitar and piano. He not only taught all of them but repaired them, too. And he arranged for the local big bands up near Springfield, Mass., where I grew up. We had some great territory bands up there. Mr. LaRose wasn't a great jazz player but he was very aware of the American musical scene.  And encouraging. But you didn't get cocky or he’d shoot you down in a minute. [laughs] He kept you encouraged but humble. I just loved the man.

JW: So Mr. LaRose made you feel good about your ability and potential?
PW: Yes he did. And because of him, from the time I was 13 or 14, I was hooked on becoming a musician. I worked very hard at it.

JW: You studied with Lennie Tristano in New York when you were just 15 years old—yet you were never influenced by him.
PW: I just wanted to go to New York because Charlie Parker was there. Studying with Tristano [pictured] was a good excuse. I’d just take a day trip to New York, you know. When kids talk about a field trip, that was a field trip for me and my friend, Hal Serra. He was a piano player who lived up the street from me. He had a couple of years on me. His family knew my family and he looked over me.

read more: http://www.jazzwax.com/2015/09/phil-woods-1931-2015.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=FeedBlitzRss&utm_content=Phil+Woods+%281931-2015%29

Used with permission by Marc Myers

Phil Woods, On Piano Jazz

yamaha.com

by GRANT JACKSON, May 03, 2013 1:00 PM
On this episode of Piano Jazz, originally broadcast in 2003, alto saxophonist Phil Woods brings his quintet's rhythm section — bassist Steve Gilmore and drummer Bill Goodwin — by for a session with host Marian McPartland. Woods has been called "The New Bird," as in the heir to bop alto pioneer Charlie "Bird" Parker.

He's in elite company, as fellow hard bop altos Sonny Stitt and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley also got that treatment early in their careers. After a lifetime of playing, the 78-year-old Woods is still going strong and still finding new ways to apply bop to standards and lesser-known tunes.


Woods launches into this session with an opening solo in "How About You?" that bounces along at an easy-swinging tempo. He also inserts a few bars of his blistering bop fury, but Woods admits to a desire for slowing things down a bit these days.


"When we're young, we want to fill the air with notes," he says. "But it's more impressive to play one note that means something. Now, I want to slow down. That's the art."

Woods demonstrates the art of slowing down in the next tune, "A Sleepin' Bee," in which he brings the pure, soulful tone of his alto to the fore, with some acrobatic 16th notes here and there.

Listen on:  http://www.npr.org/2010/04/16/126046179/phil-woods-on-piano-jazz


With his quintet, Woods plays more obscure material — including forgotten show tunes — that many other jazz musicians pass up in favor of standards. However, in the ballad "Lover Man," Woods proves that he's not lost interest in cutting his own path through a well-trodden tune. And McPartland plays a solo version of one of her tunes, "Twilight World." It may not be a standard, but the tune piqued the interest of the late, great Johnny Mercer, who penned a lyric.


"What a gorgeous song," Woods exclaims. "I must have a copy so I can add it to my list of tunes for the quintet."
Intense Yet Lyrical


Next, the musicians get together for Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies." Woods' intense yet lyrical alto demands attention, as he plays the tune at a cool tempo and his rhythm players know just where to give way. The session delves deeper with the sentimental "I'll See You Again," written by Noel Coward. The tune allows Woods to stretch out on full, sorrowful notes.


"The melody plays itself," Woods says. "There are some tunes you just have to decorate, without any improvising. But it is hard to restrain yourself."

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2010/04/16/126046179/phil-woods-on-piano-jazz?ft=3&f=126134671&sc=nl&cc=jn-20130505

Phil Woods: "Right to Swing"

Reprinted from http://jazzwax.com

Phil Woods is a band guy deep down. Though he has recorded hundreds of small-group albums, Phil always sounds most at home standing out in a crowd. His first commercial recording was with Neal Hefti and His Orchestra (Hot 'N Hearty in 1955), and some of his most memorable recordings have been as the soulful soloist on recordings by superb orchestras: Larry Sonn's The Sound of Sonn (1955), Dizzy Gillespie's World Statesman (1956), Manny Albam'sJazz Greats of Our Time Vol. 2 and The Blues Is Everybody's Business (1957), Michel Legrand's Legrand Jazz (1958),Gene Krupa Plays Gerry Mulligan (1958), Bill Potts's The Jazz Soul of Porgy & Bess (1959) and Quincy Jones and His Orchestra from 1959 into the early '60s.

So it's gratifying to hear Phil once again with a bright, intelligent band. His latest album, Right to Swing: Phil Woods with the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble (Jazzed Media) directed by Bob Lark, features Phil comfortably swimming with sharks. The album's first five tracks were arranged by Phil with the final five were handled by Phil and several students. All of the songs were written by Phil.

Phil loves working with DePaul University in Chicago and it's no wonder. The musicians on his recordings with DePaul ensembles are superb and have terrific taste and judgment. Phil's close ties to the school has much to do with Lark [pictured above], who is director of jazz studies and teaches jazz trumpet and jazz pedagogy and jazz style. Phil has donated much of his 300 original compositions to the college.

On Right to Swing, there's no wheel-spinning or attempts to sound like fusion-crazed teens. Songs and arrangements are economical and hearken back to a time when jazz-band recordings breathed, climbed dramatically and moved toward a goal. Weak End, arranged by Carl Kennedy, is a perfect example. A mid-tempo swinger, the song features Phil and trumpeter David Kaiser. The band slides in and out with airy bounce and tonal intelligence. What a rare joy to hear a band that does not succumb to section yammering and showcasing. Every bit of music here has purpose and united execution. 

Dig Cormac McCarthy's stealthy and cinematic arrangement of Phil's Casanova. There's plenty of drama and technique in the solos by Phil and vibraphonist David Bugher. You can almost hear Phil listening intently and being motivated by the warm textures behind him. There's a lot of color and supoort by the band. Dig Phil's reedy arrangement of hisScherzo.

If this CD is any indication, Phil is on top of his game at age 81—never relying on cliches or time-worn tricks. With a band this good, Phil has no choice but to show his stuff and exhibit the sound and fifth-gear energy that made him the go-to East Coast alto soloist throughout the '50s. Now, more than 50 years later, he's once again in the thick of a band, soaring away. I'd add this album to the collection of must-haves mentioned above. And that's saying something. [Pictured above: Phil Woods in 1956]

JazzWax tracks: You'll find Right to Swing: Phil Woods with the DePaul University Jazz Ensemble (Jazzed Media)here.

JazzWax clip: Here's Phil playing Weak End...

Weak End

Used with permission by Marc Myers

BJO & Phil Woods - Movin

Barcelona Jazz Orquestra & Phil Woods playing Movin', solo Phil Woods and Victor de Diego