Woody Shaw

All Music Guide:

One of the most gifted and innovative jazz musicians of his generation, trumpeter Woody Shaw navigated the rapidly fluctuating jazz scene of the '70s and '80s to create a lasting body of work that extends his influence well beyond his tragic death at age 44. Born in Laurinburg, NC, on December 24, 1944, Shaw grew up in Newark, NJ. Interestingly, Shaw's father, Woody Shaw, Sr., sang in the gospel group the Diamond Jubilee Singers in the '30s and attended high school in Laurinburg with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie -- a connection that did not go unnoticed by a young musically inclined Shaw. Starting out on bugle, Shaw moved to trumpet at age 11 and continued his studies in music theory while attending an arts high school in Newark. By his teens, Shaw had gained a strong knowledge base in music and was already playing jazz. Early on, he evinced the influence of such artists as Louis Armstrong and Harry James, but quickly fell under the spell of such modern trumpeters as Gillespie, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Kenny Dorham, Booker Little, Lee Morgan, and others. Later on, Shaw would also express much interest in the advancements of saxophonist John Coltrane, whose style and harmonic approach is clearly evident in his playing.

By 1963, Shaw's steady presence on the vibrant Newark jazz scene -- which included such future stars as keyboardist Larry Young and trombonist Grachan Moncur III -- had begun to catch the attention of the greater jazz world, and Shaw found work with Latin percussionist Willie Bobo as well as progressive saxophonist Eric Dolphy. Dolphy even invited Shaw on a tour of France. Sadly, however, Dolphy died from a diabetic coma before Shaw was able to join him in Paris. Undeterred, Shaw left for France and ended up performing in several European countries with a bevy of name artists including pianist Bud Powell, drummer Kenny Clarke, saxophonist Johnny Griffin, and others. Shaw even brought his Newark pals organist Young and drummer Billy Brooks overseas to perform with him and saxophonist Nathan Davis.

In 1964, Shaw returned to the States and began a series of highly formative jobs, beginning with a stint with pianist Horace Silver and continuing with a who's who of jazz artists including pianist Chick Corea, saxophonists Jackie McLean and Booker Ervin, pianists McCoy Tyner and Andrew Hill, and drummer Max Roach. It was during this period that Shaw appeared on several now classic recordings including Silver's Cape Verdean Blues (1965) and The Jody Grind (1966), Larry Young's landmark Blue Note date Unity (1965), and some lesser-known but no less stellar releases like pianist Andrew Hill's Grass Roots (1968). The late '60s also found Shaw pairing with such forward-thinking and avant-garde-leaning saxophonists as Gary Bartz, Pharoah Sanders, Hank Mobley, and Archie Shepp.

The 1970s were a fruitful time both creatively and commercially for Shaw, who formed several inspired working partnerships including stints with saxophonist Joe Henderson, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, and drummer Louis Hayes. It was also during the '70s that Shaw first recorded as a leader and released several influential, forward-thinking albums featuring his by then highly individualized style that mixed harmonically complex post-bop, modal jazz, and nods toward fusion and free jazz. Included in this period are such albums as Blackstone Legacy (1970), Song of Songs (1972), Moontrane (1974), Little Red's Fantasy (1976), and The Iron Men (1977).

Capping off this decade of intense creative output, Shaw signed to Columbia Records and released several more highly acclaimed albums with Rosewood (1977), Woody III (1978) -- named after his son Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw III, who was born that year -- For Sure! (1980), and United (1981). Of the four releases, Rosewood achieved the most acclaim, earning a Grammy nomination and getting voted Best Jazz Album of 1978 in the Down Beat Reader's Poll -- the same poll in which Shaw was picked as Best Jazz Trumpeter of the Year. Although Shaw eventually parted ways with Columbia, he continued to work and record throughout the '80s, releasing a handful of compelling albums, not the least of which included his three sessions with fellow trumpet innovator Freddie Hubbard: Time Speaks (1982), Double Take (1985), and Eternal Triangle (1988) -- most of which are collected on The Complete Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw Sessions.

By this time, Shaw had been diagnosed with an incurable degenerative eye disease and was losing his eyesight. While the disease did not hamper his performing abilities, it would have obviously made the everyday functions of going about one's life, let alone a music career, difficult. Although specifics of the accident are somewhat vague, what is known is that on February 27, 1989, Shaw was struck by a subway car in Brooklyn, NY, which severed his left arm. Subsequently, Shaw suffered complications while in the hospital and died of kidney failure on May 10, 1989.

Although the late '80s had proven to be the most difficult period of Shaw's musical life, with the rise of the Young Lions -- most notably trumpeter Wynton Marsalis -- and the burgeoning renaissance of acoustic post-bop jazz, the seeds were sown for a renewed appreciation of Shaw's music. Like Shaw, Marsalis was not only a classically trained musician, but had spent time as a member of Blakey's Jazz Messengers and, like many of the younger jazz musicians of the '80s, drew much inspiration from Shaw's unique and harmonically progressive approach to improvisation. Shaw recorded with several of these younger musicians, including saxophonist Kenny Garrett on his stellar 1984 Criss Cross debut, Introducing Kenny Garrett. Shaw also brought younger musicians into his own group, including trombonist Steve Turre and pianist Mulgrew Miller, as well as drummers Tony Reedus and Terri Lyne Carrington. In this way, Shaw secured his reputation alongside such icons as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, and Horace Silver as one of the great jazz innovators, bandleaders, and mentors.

Wikipedia:

Woody Shaw (December 24, 1944 – May 10, 1989) was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, composer and band leader, often referred to as the "last innovator" in the jazz trumpet lineage. Shaw is credited with revolutionizing the technical and harmonic vocabulary of the instrument and is considered one of the great jazz composers and band leaders of the twentieth century. Born with a photographic memory and perfect pitch, Woody Shaw is looked upon as one of the major conceptualists and important musical geniuses in the history of jazz, thought to have been generations ahead of his time.

Biography

Early life and background

Woody Shaw was born on December 24, 1944 in Laurinburg, North Carolina. He was brought to Newark, New Jersey by his parents, Rosalie Pegues and Woody Shaw, Sr., at the age of 1 year old. Shaw's father, Woody Shaw, Sr. was a member of the African American gospel group known as the Diamond Jubilee Singers and both of his parents attended the same secondary private school as Dizzy Gillespie, Laurinburg Institute. Shaw's mother is originally from the same town as Gillespie, Cheraw, South Carolina.

Shaw began playing bugle at age 9 and performed in the Junior Elks, Junior Mason, and Washington Carver Drum and Bugle Corps in Newark, New Jersey. Though not his first choice for an instrument, he began studying classical trumpet with Jerome Ziering at Cleveland Junior High School at the age of 11. In a 1978 interview, Shaw explained:

The trumpet was not my first choice for an instrument. In fact, I ended up playing it by default. When we were asked what we wanted to play in the Eighteenth Avenue School Band, I chose the violin, but I was too late since all the violins were taken. My second choice was the saxophone or the trombone but they were also all spoken for. The only instrument that was left was the trumpet, and I felt why did I have to get stuck with this "tinny" sounding thing.

When I complained to my music teacher that I didn't think it was fair that all the other kids got to play the instruments they wanted, he told me to just be patient. He said he had a good feeling about me and the trumpet, and he assured me I'd grow to love it. Of course my teacher was right, and it didn't take long for me to fall in love with the trumpet. In retrospect, I believe there was some mystical force that brought us together.

Ziering encouraged him to continue his study of classical trumpet and pursue an education at the Juilliard School of music with famed trumpet instructor William Vacchiano, but Shaw had a deep interest in jazz. His first influences were Louis Armstrong and Harry James. After skipping two grades (Shaw had a photographic memory), he began attending Newark Arts High School (alma mater of Wayne Shorter, Sarah Vaughan, Larry Young, Grachan Moncur, Melba Moore, Savion Glover and many others).

As a teenager, Shaw worked professionally at weddings, dances, and night clubs. He eventually left school but continued his study of the trumpet under the influence of Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown, Booker Little, Lee Morgan, and Freddie Hubbard. He later discovered that he had picked up the trumpet during the same month and year that Clifford Brown died, June 1956.

Paris and Eric Dolphy (early 1960s)

In 1963, after many local professional jobs, Woody worked for Willie Bobo (with Chick Corea and Joe Farrell) and also performed and recorded as a sideman with Eric Dolphy. The following year, Dolphy invited Shaw to join him in Paris, however, Dolphy suddenly died shortly before Shaw's departure. He decided to make the trip nonetheless, and found steady work in Paris with close friend Nathan Davis, performing at the famed club Le Chat Qui Peche with musicians such as Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, Johnny Griffin, and Art Taylor, as well as notable French musicians, like Jean-Louis Chautemps and Jef Gilson. Woody performed frequently in Berlin, and London with a group that included Nathan Davis, Larry Young, and Billy Brooks, the latter two of whom grew up with Shaw in Newark.

Blue Note Records (mid- to late 1960s)

By the mid-1960s, Shaw had successfully absorbed the conception and influence of his mentor and friend saxophonist Eric Dolphy (Iron Man, 1963), and was meanwhile exploring the harmonic innovations of John Coltrane. Both saxophonists contributed greatly to the development of his style as a trumpeter and composer.

Shaw returned to the U.S. from Paris in 1964 and began his career as one of Blue Note Records's formidable "house" trumpet players, working steadily with a roster of respected artists. He replaced Carmel Jones in the Horace Silver quintet (1965–1966), and made his very first Blue Note debut on Larry Young's famed Unity album (1965), upon which three of his compositions ("Zoltan", "Moontrane", and "Beyond All Limits") would appear ("Moontrane" was dedicated to John Coltrane, was written when Shaw as just 18 years old and was the first composition he ever wrote).

He also collaborated frequently and recorded with Chick Corea (1966–1967), Jackie McLean (1967), Booker Ervin (1968), McCoy Tyner (1968), Andrew Hill (1969), Herbie Hancock, and Bobby Hutcherson. In 1968-69, he worked intermittently with Max Roach touring with him to Iran. He also worked as a studio musician, and worked in pit orchestras and on Broadway musicals.

Columbia Records (1970s)

After working frequently with Bobby Hutcherson, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner and others, Woody Shaw emerged as a band leader during the early 1970s, which was a time when many jazz artists began to explore jazz-rock and fewer bands performed in the tradition of hard bop as a result of the popularity of and demand for more "commercial" music. A younger statesmen among his admired elders, Shaw saw himself as an heir to the musical legacy of great trumpeters such as Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Clifford Brown, and, being an alumnus of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, felt responsible for upholding the integrity and appreciation of the tradition of "straight-ahead" jazz.

He released several albums on the Muse label, and in 1978 was signed to Columbia Records following an endorsement from Miles Davis. He then recorded the albums Rosewood, Stepping Stones, Woody III, For Sure, and United. Rosewood was nominated for 2 Grammys and was voted Best Jazz Album of 1978 in the Down Beat Reader's Poll, which also voted Woody Shaw Best Jazz Trumpeter of the Year and #4 Jazz Musician of the Year.

Collaborations (1980s)

Throughout the 1980s, Shaw continued performing and recording as a leader with sidemen such as pianists Onaje Allan Gumbs, Mulgrew Miller, and Larry Willis, bassist David Williams, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, and trombonist Steve Turre among others, recording a number of more "traditional" but highly-lyrical albums (Solid, Setting Standards, In My Own Sweet Way) consisting predominantly of standards and tunes from the hard bop repertoire. During this time he also worked on projects with saxophonists Kenny Garrett and Dexter Gordon, as well as fellow trumpeter Freddie Hubbard on three historic albums (Time Speaks, Double Take, and The Eternal Triangle), later reissued on Blue Note as the Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw Sessions.

Death

On February 27, 1989, Shaw was struck by a Brooklyn subway car, which severed his left arm. Shaw suffered complications in the hospital and died of kidney failure on May 10, 1989.

He is survived by his mother, two brothers, a sister, and his son, Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw III.

Musical style

Woody Shaw was noted for his mastery and innovative use of "wide" intervals, often fourths and fifths, which are considered relatively unnatural to the trumpet and difficult to employ skillfully due to (a) the tremendous technical facility required to do so (see embouchure), (b) the architecture of the instrument, (c) the trumpet's inherent harmonic tendencies based on the overtone series, and (d) its traditional association with intervals based more commonly on thirds and diatonic relationships.

In both his improvisations and his compositions, Shaw frequently used polytonality, the combination of two or more tonalities or keys (i.e. multiple chords or harmonic structures) at once. In his solos, he often superimposed highly complex permutations of the pentatonic scale and sequences of intervals that modulated unpredictably through numerous key centers. He was a master of modality and used a wide range of harmonic color, generating unusual contrasts, using tension and resolution, dissonance, odd rhythmic groupings, and "over the barline" phrases, yet always resolving his ideas according to the form and harmonic structure of a given composition while adhering to the conventions of jazz improvisation and simultaneously creating new ones.

His "attack" was remarkably clean and precise, regardless of tempo (Shaw often played extremely fast passages). He had a rich, dark tone that was distinctive with a near-vocal quality to it; his intonation and articulation were highly-developed, and he greatly utilized the effects of the lower register, usually employing a deep, extended vibrato at the end of his phrases. Shaw also often incorporated the chromatic scale, which gave his melodic lines a subtle fluidity that seemed to allow him to weave "in and out" of chords seamlessly from all "angles."

Shaw was also born with a photographic memory and perfect pitch. Max Roach once stated: "He was truly one of the greatest. I first had occasion to work with Woody on a trip to Iran. One of the most amazing things was his uncanny memory. I was just flabbergasted. After one look, he knew all of the charts, no matter how complex they were."

Woody Shaw's improvisational and composing style bears the influences of his idols Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, as well as many European modern classical and 20th century composers, such as Bela Bartok, Zoltán Kodály, Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Erik Satie, Alexander Scriabin, Carlos Chavez, Ernest Bloch, Olivier Messiaen, Paul Hindemith, Charles Ives, Edgar Varese, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Colin McPhee and others. Shaw also listened closely to traditional Japanese music, Indonesian Gamelan, Indian classical music, Brazilian music, and various other musics of the world.

Educator and clinician

Throughout his career, Woody Shaw gave countless clinics, master classes and private lessons to students around the world.

During the 1970s, he and Joe Henderson were faculty members in Jamey Aebersold's jazz camp.

NEA Grant-recipients who studied with Woody Shaw include:

Other students and apprentices:

Admiration among musicians

As a musician and trumpeter, Shaw was held in remarkably high esteem by his colleagues and is today seen as one of the most technically and harmonically advanced trumpet players in the history of jazz and of the instrument itself. Miles Davis, a notoriously harsh critic of fellow musicians, once said of Shaw: "Now there's a great trumpet player. He can play different from all of them." Trumpeter Dave Douglas states: "It's not only the brilliant imagination that captivates with Woody Shaw - it's how natural those fiendishly difficult lines feel... Woody Shaw is now one of the most revered figures for trumpeters today." Shaw is credited with having extended the harmonic and technical vocabulary of the trumpet. Upon hearing of Shaw's death in 1989, Wynton Marsalis stated: "Woody added to the vocabulary of the trumpet. His whole approach influenced me tremendously."

Spirituality

Woody Shaw was a devout practitioner of a Chinese martial art known as T'ai chi ch'uan (Wu-style t'ai chi ch'uan). He also practiced meditation or self-hypnosis, and Sirsha-Asana - a form of Yoga.

Travels

Throughout his life, Woody Shaw travelled all over Europe, moving to Paris, France at the young age of 19 following an invitation from Eric Dolphy. As a sideman with Max Roach, he traveled to Iran in 1969. He also toured such places as Japan, England, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Brussels, and the Czech Republic.

During a 1980s State Department Tour, Shaw ventured eastward to such countries as Egypt, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Most recently, it has been discovered that Shaw spent significant time performing and giving clinics in India, working in such historic cities as New Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, and Calcutta. When asked by film producer Chuck France in an interview whether he thought traveling was important, Shaw adamantly responded: "Most definitely. I think every great artist should share his music with the world."