Woody Shaw: Ginseng People

Woody Shaw died 22 years ago this month. A trumpeter of power, taste, a subtle harmonic sense and admirable originality, Shaw was long burdened with critiques that described him as a disciple, if not a copy, of Freddie Hubbard, who was six years his senior. This recording they made together—out of print, expensive and worth finding—says otherwise. Before becoming a leader in the late 1970s, Shaw worked with Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Joe Henderson, Max Roach, Dexter Gordon and Gil Evans, among others.

Here he is with his quartet at a concert at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1985, when he was 40. His rhythm section was Stanley Cowell, piano; David Williams, bass; and the 19-year-old Terri Lynn Carrington, drums. This is Shaw’s “Ginseng People.”

The Shaw video came from Steve Provizer, the Boston trumpeter, writer, broadcaster and proprietor of the interesting weblog Brilliant Corners, which has long had a link in the Rifftides blogroll. In his current posting, Provizer ponders what he sees as a general decline in the number of comments by readers of jazz blogs.