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SFJAZZ Spring Season 2006 • March 17-June 17, 2006

Phil Woods Quintet

Sunday, May 7 • 7pm

  • $59
  • $44
  • $36
  • $25
    • “Woods has taken Charlie Parker's charging bebop vocabulary through 50 years of refinements and modernizations.”—The New York Times

    Performing on the great Charlie “Bird” Parker's own horn, alto sax virtuoso Phil Woods has dazzled audiences for decades÷and never more so than with his current quintet, featuring pianist Bill Charlap and trumpeter Brian Lynch. “The ever-prolific altoman is still setting the pace at 74,” wrote JazzTimes this past May.

     

    Program Notes

    An elder statesman of jazz who is one of the masters of bop, Phil Woods has four Grammy Awards to his credit as well as the Jazz Journalist Association’s 2005 alto saxophonist of the year honors. According to one jazz scribe, Woods “evokes in most jazz fans the image of a searingly hot tone and intensely driving rhythmic pulse, as well as improvisation that grabs listeners by the throat and never lets go.”

    The 74-year-old Woods recalls breaking into the jazz scene back in the ‘50s, crediting Quincy Jones. “Quincy discovered me,” he says. “I was playing at Birdland in 1956 and he liked what he heard. At the time Quincy was the musical director for Dizzy Gillespie’s big band, which is how I got to work there, traveling with Diz and Quincy to Europe when I was 24. Then I worked on Quincy’s early albums. He believed in me. He’s a universal hero to me.”

    It’s no surprise then that Woods’ latest album is This Is How I Feel About Quincy, a collection of tunes that celebrate Jones’ compositions. Over the course of his long and creatively vital career, Woods has recorded for dozens of labels, always maintaining his improvisational genius and spirited brio.

    For his SFJAZZ date, Woods leads a quintet that includes his longtime rhythm team of bassist Steve Gilmore and drummer Bill Goodwin, both of whom have been part of the Woods experience since 1974. Relative newcomers include trumpeter Brian Lynch, who joined Woods in 1992, and pianist Bill Charlap, who was enlisted by Woods in 1995. Charlap enjoys a strong solo career as a Blue Note recording artist, but when the call comes he has faithfully stood by the alto saxophonist for over a decade now. As the All Music Guide to notes, “Woods has had his own sound since the mid-1950s and has stuck to his musical guns throughout a remarkably productive career.”

    — Dan Ouellette

     
    Phil Woods saxophone
    Bill Charlap piano
    Brian Lynch trumpet
    Steve Gilmore bass
    Bill Goodwin drums