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|Origen = [[Savannah]], [[Georgia]], [[Estados Unidos]]
|Estilo = [[Jazz]], [[Bebop]], [[Blues]]
|Instrumento = [[Saxofón]], [[Vozflauta]], [[voz]]
|Tiempo = [[1945]] - [[2010]]
|Artistas_relacionados = [[Dizzy Gillespie]]
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James Moody was an institution in jazz from the late '40s into the 21st century, whether on tenor, flute, occasional alto, or yodeling his way through his "Moody's Mood for Love." After serving in the Air Force (1943-1946), he joined Dizzy Gillespie's bebop orchestra and began a lifelong friendship with the trumpeter. Moody toured Europe with Gillespie and then stayed overseas for several years, working with Miles Davis, Max Roach, and top European players. His 1949 recording of "I'm in the Mood for Love" became a hit in 1952 under the title of "Moody's Mood for Love" with classic vocalese lyrics written by Eddie Jefferson and a best-selling recording by King Pleasure. After returning to the U.S., Moody formed a septet that lasted for five years, recorded extensively for Prestige and Argo, took up the flute, and then from 1963-1968, was a member of Dizzy Gillespie's quintet. He worked in Las Vegas show bands during much of the 1970s before returning to jazz, playing occasionally with Gillespie, mostly working as a leader and recording with Lionel Hampton's Golden Men of Jazz. Moody, who alternated between tenor (which he preferred) and alto throughout his career, had an original sound on both horns. He was also one of the best flutists in jazz. Moody recorded as a leader for numerous labels, including Blue Note, Xanadu, Vogue, Prestige, EmArcy, Mercury, Argo, DJM, Milestone, Perception, MPS, Muse, Vanguard, and Novus. He died of complications from pancreatic cancer on December 9, 2010 in San Diego, CA. James Moody was 85 years old.<ref name="all">{{cita web |url = http://www.allmusic.com/artist/james-moody-p7165/biography|título= James Moody|autor=Scott Yanow|fecha= |editorial= allmusic.com.com|idioma= inglés |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref>
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Nacido un 26 de marzo de 1925, James Moody (saxofonista alto, tenor, cantante y flautista) se dedicó al saxo alto a los 16 años, sumando el tenor un año después. Tocó en la Fuerza Aérea Norteamericana entre 1943 y 1946 e inmediatamente después se unió, en pleno auge del bebop y soplando el tenor, a la banda del maestro de la trompeta, Dizzy Gillespie.
Tuvo oportunidad de grabar su primer disco con algunos de los integrantes de la Big Band de Gillespie, liderando un grupo que buscaba ampliar el sonido del quinteto de Charlie Parker. Eso fue en Octubre de 1984 y el grupo que grabó en el famoso club neoyorquino "Blue Note" se llamó "James Moody and His Modernists". Ese mismo año realizó su primera gira a Europa, afincándose en Paris donde residió hasta 1951. De este período provienen algunas de sus más interesantes grabaciones, entre ellas la composición que le dio la fama "I'm In The Mood For Love" una pieza versionada por Moody y de autoría compartida entre Dorothy Fields (letra) y Jimmy McHugh (música). Fue tanto el éxito que tuvo ésa pieza que de alguna manera lo lastró para el resto de su carrera.
En Europa, tuvo la oportunidad de grabar en Francia y en Suecia, donde hizo escuela con una banda de músicos locales llamada "His Swedish Crowns". De vuelta a los Estados Unidos, en 1952 formó un septeto, que lideró, agregando a su repertorio de instrumentos la flauta desde mediados de esa década, grabando intensivamente para los sellos "Prestige" y "Argos" hasta 1962. En ese año integró brevemente un grupo de tres saxofonistas tenores junto con Gene Ammons y Sonny Stitt. Nuevamente contacto con Dizzy Gillespie, sumándose a su quinteto entre 1963 y 1968. El último año con Dizzy, lo pasó en Europa con la gira que realizó su bigband. Después de dejar a Gillespie y hasta mediados de la década de los setenta, casi desaparece de la escena del jazz, y solo algún trabajo esporádico como solista o en algún que otro show en Las Vegas es lo que le mantiene en el candelero. En 1980, y cuando contaba 55 años, decide retomar su contacto con el jazz, cosa que hizo con acierto, mucho esfuerzo y gran tenacidad.
En la última década del Siglo XX, aparece frecuentemente en conciertos y festivales de jazz por toda Europa. Tuvo oportunidad de volver a tocar con su viejo amigo, Lionel Hampton y sus "Golden Men of Jazz". Su estilo de músico afincado en los terrenos del bebop, se ha ido edulcorando con el tiempo y a ello contribuyó bastante el particular apego al ultimo instrumento que adoptó: la flauta, con la que obtiene un particular y original sonido y convirtiéndose en uno de los grandes virtuosos de ese instrumento en el jazz. De su extensa y selecta discografía, podemos destacar los álbumes: "Moody's Mood for Love" (GRP, 1956) junto al cantante de vocalese, Eddie Jefferson; y el extraordinario "Don't Look Away Not" (Prestige, 1969) con el mismo cantante y Barry Harris al piano. <ref name="ayb">{{cita web |url = http://www.apoloybaco.com/jamesmoodybiografia.htm|título= James Moody|autor=|fecha= |editorial= apoloybaco.com.com|idioma= español |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref> ▼
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James Moody, a jazz saxophonist and flutist celebrated for his virtuosity, his versatility and his onstage ebullience, died on Thursday in San Diego. He was 85.
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His death, at a hospice, was confirmed by his wife, Linda. Mr. Moody lived in San Diego.
Last month, Mr. Moody disclosed that he had pancreatic cancer and had decided against receiving chemotherapy or radiation treatment.
Mr. Moody, who began his career with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie shortly after World War II and maintained it well into the 21st century, developed distinctive and equally fluent styles on both tenor and alto saxophone, a relatively rare accomplishment in jazz. He also played soprano saxophone, and in the mid-1950s he became one of the first significant jazz flutists, impressing the critics if not himself.
James Moody — he was always Moody, never James, Jim or Jimmy, to his friends and colleagues — was born in Savannah, Ga., on March 26, 1925, to James and Ruby Moody, and raised in Newark. Despite being hard of hearing, he gravitated toward music and began playing alto saxophone at 16, later switching to tenor. He played with an all-black Army Air Forces band during World War II. After being discharged in 1946, he auditioned for Gillespie, who led one of the first big bands to play the complex and challenging new form of jazz known as bebop. He failed that audition but passed a second one a few months later, and soon captured the attention of the jazz world with a brief but fiery solo on the band’s recording of the Gillespie composition “Emanon.” <ref name="nyt"></ref>▼“I’m not a flute player,” he told one interviewer. “I’m a flute holder.”
Mr. Moody’s career was twice interrupted by alcoholism. The first time, in 1948, he moved to Paris to live with an uncle while he recovered. He returned to the United States in 1951 to capitalize on the success of “I’m in the Mood for Love,” forming a seven-piece band that mixed elements of modern jazz with rhythm and blues. After a fire at a Philadelphia nightclub destroyed the band’s equipment, uniforms and sheet music in 1958, he began drinking again and checked himself into the Overbrook psychiatric hospital in Cedar Grove, N.J. After a stay of several months, he celebrated his recovery by writing and recording the uptempo blues “Last Train From Overbrook,” which became one of his best-known compositions. <ref name="nyt"></ref>▼The self-effacing humor of that comment was characteristic of Mr. Moody, who took his music more seriously than he took himself. Musicians admired him for his dexterity, his unbridled imagination and his devotion to his craft, as did critics; reviewing a performance in 1980, Gary Giddins of The Village Voice praised Mr. Moody’s “unqualified directness of expression” and said his improvisations at their best were “mini-epics in which impassioned oracles, comic relief, suspense and song vie for chorus time.” But audiences were equally taken by his ability to entertain. ▼
In 1963 he reunited with Gillespie, joining his popular quintet. He was featured as both a soloist and the straight man for Gillespie’s between-songs banter, sharpening his musical and comedic skills at the same time. He left Gillespie in 1969 to try his luck as a bandleader again but met with limited success; four years later he left jazz entirely to work in Las Vegas hotel orchestras. <ref name="nyt"></ref>▼Defying the stereotype of the modern jazz musician as austere and humorless (and following the example of Gillespie, whom he considered his musical mentor and with whom he worked on and off for almost half a century), Mr. Moody told silly jokes, peppered his repertory with unlikely numbers like “Beer Barrel Polka” and the theme from “The Flintstones,” and often sang. His singing voice was unpolished but enthusiastic — and very distinctive, partly because he spoke and sang with a noticeable lisp, a result of having been born partly deaf.
After seven years of pit-band anonymity, providing accompaniment for everyone from Milton Berle to Ike and Tina Turner to Liberace, Mr. Moody divorced his wife, Margena, and returned to the East Coast to resume his jazz career. His final three decades were productive, with frequent touring and recording (as the leader of his own small group and, on occasion, as a sideman with Gillespie, who died in 1993) and even a brief foray into acting, with a bit part in the 1997 Clint Eastwood film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” set in Mr. Moody’s birthplace, Savannah. <ref name="nyt"></ref>▼The song he sang most often had a memorable name and an unusual history. Based on the harmonic structure of “I’m in the Mood for Love,” it began life as an instrumental when Mr. Moody recorded it in Stockholm in 1949, improvising an entirely new melody on a borrowed alto saxophone. Released as “I’m in the Mood for Love” (and credited to that song’s writers) even though his rendition bore only the faintest resemblance to the original tune, it was a modest hit for Mr. Moody in 1951. It became a much bigger hit shortly afterward when the singer Eddie Jefferson wrote lyrics to Mr. Moody’s improvisation and another singer, King Pleasure, recorded it as “Moody’s Mood for Love.”
“Moody’s Mood for Love” (which begins with the memorable lyric “There I go, there I go, there I go, there I go ...”) became a jazz and pop standard, recorded by Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Van Morrison, Amy Winehouse and others. And it was a staple of Mr. Moody’s concert and nightclub performances as sung by Mr. Jefferson, who was a member of his band for many years. Mr. Jefferson was shot to death in 1979; when Mr. Moody, who was in the middle of a long hiatus from jazz at the time, resumed his career a few years later, he began singing the song himself. He never stopped.
▲James Moody — he was always Moody, never James, Jim or Jimmy, to his friends and colleagues — was born in Savannah, Ga., on March 26, 1925, to James and Ruby Moody, and raised in Newark. Despite being hard of hearing, he gravitated toward music and began playing alto saxophone at 16, later switching to tenor. He played with an all-black Army Air Forces band during World War II. After being discharged in 1946, he auditioned for Gillespie, who led one of the first big bands to play the complex and challenging new form of jazz known as bebop. He failed that audition but passed a second one a few months later, and soon captured the attention of the jazz world with a brief but fiery solo on the band’s recording of the Gillespie composition “Emanon.”
▲Mr. Moody’s career was twice interrupted by alcoholism. The first time, in 1948, he moved to Paris to live with an uncle while he recovered. He returned to the United States in 1951 to capitalize on the success of “I’m in the Mood for Love,” forming a seven-piece band that mixed elements of modern jazz with rhythm and blues. After a fire at a Philadelphia nightclub destroyed the band’s equipment, uniforms and sheet music in 1958, he began drinking again and checked himself into the Overbrook psychiatric hospital in Cedar Grove, N.J. After a stay of several months, he celebrated his recovery by writing and recording the uptempo blues “Last Train From Overbrook,” which became one of his best-known compositions.
▲In 1963 he reunited with Gillespie, joining his popular quintet. He was featured as both a soloist and the straight man for Gillespie’s between-songs banter, sharpening his musical and comedic skills at the same time. He left Gillespie in 1969 to try his luck as a bandleader again but met with limited success; four years later he left jazz entirely to work in Las Vegas hotel orchestras.
“The reason I went to Las Vegas,” he told Saxophone Journal in 1998, “was because I was married and had a daughter and I wanted to grow up with my kid. I was married before and I didn’t grow up with the kids. So I said, ‘I’m going to really be a father.’ I did much better with this one because at least I stayed until my daughter was 12 years old. And that’s why I worked Vegas, because I could stay in one spot.”
▲After seven years of pit-band anonymity, providing accompaniment for everyone from Milton Berle to Ike and Tina Turner to Liberace, Mr. Moody divorced his wife, Margena, and returned to the East Coast to resume his jazz career. His final three decades were productive, with frequent touring and recording (as the leader of his own small group and, on occasion, as a sideman with Gillespie, who died in 1993) and even a brief foray into acting, with a bit part in the 1997 Clint Eastwood film “Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil,” set in Mr. Moody’s birthplace, Savannah.
The National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master in 1998. His last album, “Moody 4B,” was recorded in 2008 and released this year on the IPO label; it earned a Grammy nomination this month.
Mr. Moody, who was divorced twice, is survived by his wife of 21 years, the former Linda Peterson McGowan; three sons, Patrick, Regan and Danny McGowan; a daughter, Michelle Moody Bagdanove; a brother, Louis Watters; four grandchildren; and one great-grandson.<ref name="nyt"></ref>
For all his accomplishments, Mr. Moody always saw his musical education as a work in progress. “I’ve always wanted to be around people who know more than me,” he told The Hartford Courant in 2006, “because that way I keep learning.” <ref name="nyt">{{cita web |url = http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/arts/music/11moody.html?_r=1|título= James Moody, Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 85|autor=PETER KEEPNEWS|fecha= 10 de diciembre 2010|editorial= nytimes.com|idioma= inglés |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref>
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For over six decades, saxophone master James Moody has serenaded lovers with his signature song Moody's Mood for Love an improvisation on the chord progressions of I'm in the Mood for Love.
Born in Savannah, Georgia on March 26, 1925, and raised in Newark, New Jersey, James Moody took up the alto sax, a gift from his uncle, at the age of 16. Within a few years he fell under the spell of the deeper more full-bodied tenor saxophone after hearing Buddy Tate and Don Byas perform with the Count Basie Band at the Adams Theater in Newark, New Jersey.
In 1946, following service in the United States Air Force, Moody joined the seminal bebop big band of Dizzy Gillespie, beginning an association that - on stage and record, in orchestras and small combos - afforded a young Moody worldwide exposure and ample opportunity to shape his improvisational genius. Upon joining Gillespie, Moody was at first awed, he now admits, by the orchestra's incredible array of talent, which included Milt Jackson, Kenny Clark, Ray Brown, Thelonius Monk. The encouragement of the legendary trumpeter-leader, made his mark on the young saxophonist. His now legendary 16-bar solo on Gillespie's Emanon alerted jazz fans to an emerging world-class soloist.
During his initial stay with Gillespie, Moody also recorded with Milt Jackson for Dial Records in 1947. One year later he made his recording debut as a leader James Moody and His Bop Men for (Blue Note).
In 1949 Moody moved to Europe where in Sweden he recorded the masterpiece of improvisation for which he is renowned, Moody's Mood for Love. Returning to the States in 1952 with a huge "hit" on his hands, Moody employed vocalist Eddie Jefferson. Also, working with him during that period were Dinah Washington and Brook Benton.
In 1963 he rejoined Gillespie and performed off and on in the trumpeter's quintet for the remainder of the decade. Moody moved to Las Vegas in 1973 and had a seven year stint in the Las Vegas Hilton Orchestra, doing shows for Bill Cosby, Ann-Margaret, John Davidson, Glen Campbell, Liberace, Elvis Presley, The Osmonds, Milton Berle, Redd Foxx, Charlie Rich, and Lou Rawls to name a few.
== Estilo y valoración == ▼Moody returned to the East Coast and put together his own band again - much to the delight of his dedicated fans. In 1985, Moody received a Grammy Award Nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance for his playing on Manhattan Transfer's Vocalese album thus setting the stage for his re-emergence as a major recording artist.
James Moody was an institution in jazz from the late '40s into the 21st century, whether on tenor, flute, occasional alto, or yodeling his way through his "Moody's Mood for Love." He was also one of the best flutists in jazz. Moody recorded as a leader for numerous labels, including Blue Note, Xanadu, Vogue, Prestige, EmArcy, Mercury, Argo, DJM, Milestone, Perception, MPS, Muse, Vanguard, and Novus. <ref name="all">{{cita web |url = http://www.allmusic.com/artist/james-moody-p7165/biography|título= James Moody|autor=Scott Yanow|fecha= |editorial= allmusic.com.com|idioma= inglés |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref>
▲ En la última década del Siglo XX, aparece frecuentemente en conciertos y festivales de jazz por toda Europa. Tuvo oportunidad de volver a tocar con su viejo amigo, Lionel Hampton y sus "Golden Men of Jazz". Su estilo de músico afincado en los terrenos del bebop, se ha ido edulcorando con el tiempo y a ello contribuyó bastante el particular apego al ultimo instrumento que adoptó: la flauta, con la que obtiene un particular y original sonido y convirtiéndose en uno de los grandes virtuosos de ese instrumento en el jazz. De su extensa y selecta discografía, podemos destacar los álbumes: "Moody's Mood for Love" (GRP, 1956) junto al cantante de vocalese, Eddie Jefferson; y el extraordinario "Don't Look Away Not" (Prestige, 1969) con el mismo cantante y Barry Harris al piano. <ref name="ayb">{{cita web |url = http://www.apoloybaco.com/jamesmoodybiografia.htm|título= James Moody|autor=|fecha= |editorial= apoloybaco.com.com|idioma= español |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref>
Moody's 1986 (RCA/NOVUS) debut Something Special ended a decade-long major label recording hiatus for the versatile reedman. His follow-up recording, Moving Forward showcased his hearty vocals on What Do You Do and his interpretive woodwind wizardry on such tunes as Giant Steps and Autumn Leaves.
▲Mr. Moody, who began his career with the trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie shortly after World War II and maintained it well into the 21st century, developed distinctive and equally fluent styles on both tenor and alto saxophone, a relatively rare accomplishment in jazz. He also played soprano saxophone, and in the mid-1950s he became one of the first significant jazz flutists, impressing the critics if not himself. The self-effacing humor of that comment was characteristic of Mr. Moody, who took his music more seriously than he took himself. Musicians admired him for his dexterity, his unbridled imagination and his devotion to his craft, as did critics; reviewing a performance in 1980, Gary Giddins of The Village Voice praised Mr. Moody’s “unqualified directness of expression” and said his improvisations at their best were “mini-epics in which impassioned oracles, comic relief, suspense and song vie for chorus time.” But audiences were equally taken by his ability to entertain. <ref name="nyt">{{cita web |url = http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/arts/music/11moody.html?_r=1|título= James Moody, Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 85|autor=PETER KEEPNEWS|fecha= 10 de diciembre 2010|editorial= nytimes.com|idioma= inglés |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref>
Music is more than a livelihood to Moody, so much so that portions of Sweet and Lovely, dedicated to his wife, Linda, figured prominently in the saxophonist's wedding ceremony on April 3, 1989. As well as being on the album, Gillespie was best man at the wedding for his longtime friend. The bride and groom walked down the aisle to Gillespie's solo on Con Alma then everyone exited the church to the vamp on Melancholy Baby. As their first act of marriage Linda and James Moody took communion accompanied by the groom's recording of Sweet and Lovely. In 1990, Moody and Gillespie received a Grammy Award Nomination for their rendition of Gillespie's Get the Booty, which showcases scatting at its best. Moody returns the soprano sax to his woodwind arsenal on Honey, his nickname for his wife, Linda, and Moody's last recording for (RCA/NOVUS).
On March 26th, 1995 Moody got the surprise of his life with a birthday party in New York. It was an evening of historical significance for Jazz with many guest stars and Bill Cosby as the emcee. It can be heard on Telarc's recording, Moody's Party-- James Moody's 70th, Birthday Celebration, Live at the Blue Note.
In 1995 Moody's (Warner Bros.) release of Young at Heart, was a tribute to songs that are associated with Frank Sinatra. With an orchestra and strings many people feel this is among the most beautiful of all James Moody recordings.
Moody's last recording for Warner Bros. is Moody Plays Mancini which showcases Moody on all of his horns and flute. A tribute to the American icon Henry Mancini.
Moody's 2004 release of Homage on the Savoy Label has been a great cause for celebration. His first new studio album in 6 years, the aptly named Homage is a tribute to Moody featuring new tunes specially written for him by the likes of Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Kenny Barron, Horace Silver, Herbie Hancock, David Hazeltine and Marc Copland. Bob Belden produced the project.
Whether Moody is playing the soprano, alto, tenor, or flute, he does so with deep resonance and wit. Moody has a healthy respect for tradition, but takes great delight in discovering new musical paths, which makes him one of the most consistently expressive and enduring figures in modern jazz today. To quote Peter Watrous of the New York Times, "As a musical explorer, performer, collaborator and composer he has made an indelible contribution to the rise of American music as the dominant musical force of the twentieth century." James Moody plays on Keilwerth saxophones exclusively. <ref name="jm">{{cita web |url = http://www.jamesmoody.com/about_moody.htm|título= About Moody|autor=|fecha= |editorial= jamesmoody.com|idioma= inglés |fechaacceso=5 de febrero de 2011}}</ref>
▲== Estilo y valoración ==
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