Jazz Legend Phil Woods Passes Away at 83, Phil Woods, an alto saxophonist admired in applesauce circles for his bright, apple-pie complete and his admirable address — and broadly heard on songs by Billy Joel, Paul Simon and others — died on Tuesday in East Stroudsburg, Pa. He was 83.
The could cause was complications of emphysema, Joel Chriss, his longtime booking agent, said.
Mr. Woods was one of the arch alto saxophonists in the bearing that followed Charlie Parker, who had set an arty new bar for the apparatus while defining the agreement of bebop. Rigorous, circuitous and brisk, bebop’s stylistic accent would be a connected for Mr. Woods throughout his abounding career, as both a baton and a sideman.
For abundant of that career, he was a approved area amateur in big bands because of his ability, abnormal at the time, to apprehend area music with as abundant airy ascendancy as he brought to his solos. He recorded with the composer-arrangers Oliver Nelson, Michel Legrand and George Russell, a part of abounding others, and helped the trumpeter Clark Terry authorize his Big Bad Band.
One of Mr. Woods’s aboriginal supporters was Quincy Jones, who in 1956 brought him on a State Department-sponsored bout with the trumpeter and bebop avant-garde Dizzy Gillespie. Mr. Woods bound became a Gillespie protégé, and in some respects a agent for Parker, Gillespie’s above front-line partner, who had died in 1955.
Parker’s appellation was Bird, and for a while Mr. Woods was accepted to some, admiringly if a little back-handedly, as “the new Bird.” The affiliation was caked if he affiliated Parker’s widow, Chan, in 1957. (That alliance concluded in divorce.)
On the advocacy of the ambassador Phil Ramone, an old acquaintance at the Juilliard School, Mr. Woods was featured on Mr. Simon’s 1975 album, “Still Crazy After All These Years,” arena a arbitrary bebop cadenza on the song “Have a Good Time.” That aforementioned year he played a abandoned on the Steely Dan tune “Doctor Wu.” And in 1977 Mr. Woods was noticeably featured on Mr. Joel’s carol “Just the Way You Are,” which became a Top 10 hit and won two Grammy Awards.
Philip Wells Woods was built-in on Nov. 2, 1931, in Springfield, Mass. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began demography acquaint at a bounded music boutique and apparent that he was a quick abstraction with a able ear. His aboriginal hero on the alto saxophone was Benny Carter, followed anon thereafter by Johnny Hodges, a brilliant accompanist in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and again Parker.
While still in top school, Mr. Woods generally took the bus to New York City, addictive applesauce clubs and belief with the pianist-composer Lennie Tristano. He aswell advised classical music at Juilliard for four years.
He confused to France in 1968, balked with a alive activity bedeviled by bartering jingles and added plan for hire. He begin success about immediately, touring with a bandage he alleged the European Accent Machine.
After 5 years, Mr. Woods alternate to the United States an able abandoned artist. From 1974 on, he led a bandage with the bassist Steve Gilmore and the bagman Bill Goodwin; in contempo years the accumulation has aswell included Brian Lynch on trumpet and either Bill Charlap or Bill Mays on piano. Mr. Woods aswell became a coach to adolescent musicians like the alto saxophonist Grace Kelly, with whom he appear an album, “The Man With the Hat,” in 2011.
Mr. Woods won four Grammy Awards, alpha in 1975 with “Images,” an agreeable anthology he fabricated with Mr. Legrand. In 2007 he was called a National Endowment for the Arts Applesauce Master and accustomed a Living Applesauce Legend Award from the Kennedy Center.
Mr. Woods, who lived in Delaware Water Gap, Pa., is survived by his wife, Jill Goodwin; a son, Garth; three stepdaughters, Kim Parker and Allisen and Tracy Trotter; and a grandson.
Mr. Woods generally declared, with a blow of self-deprecation, that he was added a stylist than an innovator. While he wrote dozens of compositions, they generally acicular in the administration of his influences; they cover “Charles Christopher” (Parker’s accustomed name) and “All Bird’s Children.”
His final concert, aboriginal this ages in Pittsburgh, was a accolade to the anthology “Charlie Parker With Strings.” Backed by a bounded accent area and associates of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he brought his oxygen catchbasin with him onstage.
The could cause was complications of emphysema, Joel Chriss, his longtime booking agent, said.
Mr. Woods was one of the arch alto saxophonists in the bearing that followed Charlie Parker, who had set an arty new bar for the apparatus while defining the agreement of bebop. Rigorous, circuitous and brisk, bebop’s stylistic accent would be a connected for Mr. Woods throughout his abounding career, as both a baton and a sideman.
For abundant of that career, he was a approved area amateur in big bands because of his ability, abnormal at the time, to apprehend area music with as abundant airy ascendancy as he brought to his solos. He recorded with the composer-arrangers Oliver Nelson, Michel Legrand and George Russell, a part of abounding others, and helped the trumpeter Clark Terry authorize his Big Bad Band.
One of Mr. Woods’s aboriginal supporters was Quincy Jones, who in 1956 brought him on a State Department-sponsored bout with the trumpeter and bebop avant-garde Dizzy Gillespie. Mr. Woods bound became a Gillespie protégé, and in some respects a agent for Parker, Gillespie’s above front-line partner, who had died in 1955.
Parker’s appellation was Bird, and for a while Mr. Woods was accepted to some, admiringly if a little back-handedly, as “the new Bird.” The affiliation was caked if he affiliated Parker’s widow, Chan, in 1957. (That alliance concluded in divorce.)
On the advocacy of the ambassador Phil Ramone, an old acquaintance at the Juilliard School, Mr. Woods was featured on Mr. Simon’s 1975 album, “Still Crazy After All These Years,” arena a arbitrary bebop cadenza on the song “Have a Good Time.” That aforementioned year he played a abandoned on the Steely Dan tune “Doctor Wu.” And in 1977 Mr. Woods was noticeably featured on Mr. Joel’s carol “Just the Way You Are,” which became a Top 10 hit and won two Grammy Awards.
Philip Wells Woods was built-in on Nov. 2, 1931, in Springfield, Mass. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began demography acquaint at a bounded music boutique and apparent that he was a quick abstraction with a able ear. His aboriginal hero on the alto saxophone was Benny Carter, followed anon thereafter by Johnny Hodges, a brilliant accompanist in the Duke Ellington Orchestra, and again Parker.
While still in top school, Mr. Woods generally took the bus to New York City, addictive applesauce clubs and belief with the pianist-composer Lennie Tristano. He aswell advised classical music at Juilliard for four years.
He confused to France in 1968, balked with a alive activity bedeviled by bartering jingles and added plan for hire. He begin success about immediately, touring with a bandage he alleged the European Accent Machine.
After 5 years, Mr. Woods alternate to the United States an able abandoned artist. From 1974 on, he led a bandage with the bassist Steve Gilmore and the bagman Bill Goodwin; in contempo years the accumulation has aswell included Brian Lynch on trumpet and either Bill Charlap or Bill Mays on piano. Mr. Woods aswell became a coach to adolescent musicians like the alto saxophonist Grace Kelly, with whom he appear an album, “The Man With the Hat,” in 2011.
Mr. Woods won four Grammy Awards, alpha in 1975 with “Images,” an agreeable anthology he fabricated with Mr. Legrand. In 2007 he was called a National Endowment for the Arts Applesauce Master and accustomed a Living Applesauce Legend Award from the Kennedy Center.
Mr. Woods, who lived in Delaware Water Gap, Pa., is survived by his wife, Jill Goodwin; a son, Garth; three stepdaughters, Kim Parker and Allisen and Tracy Trotter; and a grandson.
Mr. Woods generally declared, with a blow of self-deprecation, that he was added a stylist than an innovator. While he wrote dozens of compositions, they generally acicular in the administration of his influences; they cover “Charles Christopher” (Parker’s accustomed name) and “All Bird’s Children.”
His final concert, aboriginal this ages in Pittsburgh, was a accolade to the anthology “Charlie Parker With Strings.” Backed by a bounded accent area and associates of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he brought his oxygen catchbasin with him onstage.
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