• Home
  • About
    • Doug Ramsey
    • Rifftides
    • Contact
  • Purchase Doug’s Books
    • Poodie James
    • Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond
    • Jazz Matters
    • Other Works
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal
  • rss

Rifftides

Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...

James Moody, 1925-2010

December 9, 2010 by Doug Ramsey

We knew it was coming. That doesn’t make it easier. James Moody died this afternoon of the pancreatic cancer he had known about for nearly a year but did not make public until Moody at Mic.jpgNovember. He was 85. Moody was in hospice in San Diego, his hometown for many years. His wife Linda was by his side, as she was almost every moment since they met.
Moody became famous for his solo on “I’m In The Mood For Love,” a record he made when he was 24. His friend Eddie Jefferson put a lyric to it and it became “Moody’s Mood For Love.” The lengthy obituary by George Varga in The San Diego Union-Tribune contains a passage about Moody’s reaction to the fuss over the record. It captures the combination of modesty, confidence and kindness that endeared him to everyone with whom he came in contact.

“I don’t pay any attention to that stuff,” he said. “When I made that record, I was a tenor saxophonist playing alto for the first time on record and I was trying to find the right notes, to be truthful. People later said to me: ‘You must have been very inspired when you recorded that.’ And I said: ‘Yeah I was inspired to find the right notes!’ ”
He recorded “Moody’s Mood for Love” in Sweden in 1949, during a European visit that started as a three-week vacation and lasted several years. Being abroad was an eye-opening experience for Mr. Moody, who never forgot the racism he encountered here in his native country, both before and after his European sojourn.
“In America, I thought there was something wrong with me,” said Mr. Moody, who recalled how, as an Air Force private in North Carolina, he was not allowed to eat in the same restaurants where German prisoners of war dined.
“In Paris, they treated me like they treated each other, which was altogether different from how they treated me here. When I was in France, I said: `Ah, it isn’t me (that’s the problem in America), it’s them.’ I felt good, and now I know there’s no one in this world who’s better than me. By the same token, I’m not better than anyone else.”

Moody’s funeral will be in San Diego on December 18. Details are in the Union-Tribune obituary. Peter Keepnews’s obituary in The New York Times has an extensive review of Moody’s career from his earliest days with Dizzy Gillespie’s big band in the early 1940s. For previous Rifftides pieces about Moody, go here and here.
The last time we were together, we were in a roomful of friends enjoying dinner and one another’s company. During a round of toasts I caught Moody raising his glass of water with lemon just after he said, “To us. To life.”

Moody 2007.jpg

Related

Filed Under: Main

Comments

  1. Jon Foley says

    December 10, 2010 at 10:42 am

    I was lucky enough to hear Moody with Dizzy’s group for several nights of a weeklong engagement in about 1964, and to meet and spend a little time with him. A great musician and a very nice guy.
    I especially like the last paragraph of your tribute, and the picture. That’s the way I want to remember him.

  2. Greg Camphire says

    December 10, 2010 at 12:17 pm

    great photo of mr. moody.
    i’m especially inspired by his playing on dizzy gillespie’s 1964 film soundtrack, “the cool world.” pure soul, you can hear it in every note. RIP.

  3. Rich Juliano says

    December 10, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    Moody was magnetic. 25 years ago I heard him up close for the first time, with a local rhythm section at Joe Segal’s Jazz Showcase in Chicago. Sitting just a few feet away, I was transfixed by his unparalleled level of musicianship, use of unlikely material, multi-instrumental prowess, self-deprecating personality and – yes – inimitable singing (“Moody’s Mood,” of course, and “Benny’s from Heaven,” another favorite). The best commentary is that I brought along a college friend that night who knew little of jazz, and Moody singlehandedly and permanently turned him on to the whole genre thereafter. On subsequent occasions some of my tenor-playing friends would engage him at the end of a set and Moody would put on a virtual master class. My favorite of his many words of wisdom: “If you’re supposed to be practicing, and you sound good, then you’re not really practicing.” He cannot be replaced, and we were given a gift to have had him among us for so long.

  4. Jim Brown says

    December 11, 2010 at 7:28 am

    I was one of many who were lucky enough to experience Moody fairly often, thanks to Joe Segal’s good taste. And yes, he converted at least one of my friends into a lover of jazz. He was, in every way, a strong personality in the most positive sense — an immediately identifiable musical voice, and an outgoing, loving, and outspoken human being who never stopped growing. With only a few notes, especially on tenor, you knew it was him.
    About two years ago, pianist John Campbell, a wonderful player whose work I’ve always loved, called to tell me he had a gig with Moody at Yoshi’s in Oakland. My wife and I drove up and stayed for both sets, and at intermission, Moody gave me a copy of a favorite book about the silliness of racism. Clearly, it still bothered him.
    Musically, Moody was still challenging himself, staying fresh, respecting his audience. During the last set of the evening, he played one of Trane’s more challenging tunes, with the music in front of him. Needless to say, he played the hell out of it.
    Much love to you, James.

  5. Doug Zielke says

    December 11, 2010 at 8:05 am

    “We knew it was coming. That doesn’t make it easier.”
    Indeed. I only met Mr. Moody once when he played in Seattle at Jazz Alley. He graciously autographed an album I’d brought along. A very kind gentleman. He sure could swing.

Doug Ramsey

Doug is a recipient of the lifetime achievement award of the Jazz Journalists Association. He lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he settled following a career in print and broadcast journalism in cities including New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, San Antonio, Cleveland and Washington, DC. His writing about jazz has paralleled his life in journalism... [Read More]

Rifftides

A winner of the Blog Of The Year award of the international Jazz Journalists Association. Rifftides is founded on Doug's conviction that musicians and listeners who embrace and understand jazz have interests that run deep, wide and beyond jazz. Music is its principal concern, but the blog reaches past... Read More...

Subscribe to RiffTides by Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Doug’s Books

Doug's most recent book is a novel, Poodie James. Previously, he published Take Five: The Public and Private Lives of Paul Desmond. He is also the author of Jazz Matters: Reflections on the Music and Some of its Makers. He contributed to The Oxford Companion To Jazz and co-edited Journalism Ethics: Why Change? He is at work on another novel in which, as in Poodie James, music is incidental.

Archives

Recent Comments

  • Frank Roellinger on Paul Desmond, 1924-1977
  • Dave Bentley on Paul Desmond, 1924-1977
  • Orsolya S. on Paul Desmond, 1924-1977
  • Richard Sigberman on Paul Desmond, 1924-1977
  • Orsolya S. on Keith Jarrett: Munich 2016

Doug’s Picks

Recent Listening: The New David Friesen Trio CD

David Friesen Circle 3 Trio: Interaction (Origin) Among the dozens of recent releases that deserve serious attention, a few will get it. Among those those receiving it here is bassist David Friesen’s new album.  From the Portland, Oregon, sinecure in which he thrives when he’s not touring the world, bassist Friesen has been performing at […]

Monday Recommendation: Dominic Miller

Dominic Miller Absinthe (ECM) Guitarist and composer Miller delivers power and subtlety in equal measure. Abetted by producer Manfred Eicher’s canny guidance and ECM’s flawless sound and studio presence, Miller draws on inspiration from painters of France’s impressionist period. His liner essay emphasizes the importance to his musical conception of works by Cezanne, Renoir, Lautrec, […]

Recent Listening: Dave Young And Friends

Dave Young, Lotus Blossom (Modica Music) Young, the bassist praised by Oscar Peterson for his “harmonic simpatico and unerring sense of time” when he was a member of Peterson’s trio, leads seven gifted fellow Canadians. His beautifully recorded bass is the underpinning of a relaxed session in which his swing is a force even during […]

Recent Listening: Jazz Is Of The World

Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano, Jan Lundgren, Mare Nostrum III (ACT) This third outing by Mare Nostrum continues the international trio’s close collaboration in a series of albums that has enjoyed considerable success. With three exceptions, the compositions in this installment are by the members of Mare Nostrum. It opens with one the French accordionist Galliano […]

Monday Recommendation: Thelonious Monk’s Works In Full

Kimbrough, Robinson, Reid, Drummond: Monk’s Dreams(Sunnyside) The subtitle of this invaluable 6-CD set is The Complete Compositions Of Thelonious Sphere Monk. By complete, Sunnyside means that the box contains six CDs with 70 tunes that Monk wrote beginning in the early years when his music was generally assumed to be an eccentric offshoot of bebop, […]

Recent Listening: Harry Vetro’s Northern Ranger

Recent Listening: Harry Vetro’s Northern Ranger A generation of Canadian musicians is coming to prominence in their youth and making substantial impressions. One is drummer Harry Vetro. After he was graduated from the University of Toronto Jazz Program, the 23-year-old spent much of last year exploring his country as it celebrated its 150th year of […]

More Doug's Picks

Blogroll

All About Jazz
JerryJazzMusician
Carol Sloane: SloaneView
Jazz Beyond Jazz: Howard Mandel
The Gig: Nate Chinen
Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong
Don Heckman: The International Review Of Music
Ted Panken: Today is The Question
George Colligan: jazztruth
Brilliant Corners
Jazz Music Blog: Tom Reney
Brubeck Institute
Darcy James Argue
Jazz Profiles: Steve Cerra
Notes On Jazz: Ralph Miriello
Bob Porter: Jazz Etc.
be.jazz
Marc Myers: Jazz Wax
Night Lights
Jason Crane:The Jazz Session
JazzCorner
I Witness
ArtistShare
Jazzportraits
John Robert Brown
Night After Night
Do The Math/The Bad Plus
Prague Jazz
Russian Jazz
Jazz Quotes
Jazz History Online
Lubricity

Personal Jazz Sites
Chris Albertson: Stomp Off
Armin Buettner: Crownpropeller’s Blog
Cyber Jazz Today, John Birchard
Dick Carr’s Big Bands, Ballads & Blues
Donald Clarke’s Music Box
Noal Cohen’s Jazz History
Bill Crow
Easy Does It: Fernando Ortiz de Urbana
Bill Evans Web Pages
Dave Frishberg
Ronan Guilfoyle: Mostly Music
Bill Kirchner
Mike Longo
Jan Lundgren (Friends of)
Willard Jenkins/The Independent Ear
Ken Joslin: Jazz Paintings
Bruno Leicht
Earl MacDonald
Books and CDs: Bill Reed
Marvin Stamm

Tarik Townsend: It’s A Raggy Waltz
Steve Wallace: Jazz, Baseball, Life and Other Ephemera
Jim Wilke’s Jazz Northwest
Jessica Williams

Other Culture Blogs
Terry Teachout
DevraDoWrite
Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise
On An Overgrown Path

Journalism
PressThink: Jay Rosen
Second Draft, Tim Porter
Poynter Online

Related

Return to top of page

an ArtsJournal blog

This blog published under a Creative Commons license

Copyright © 2019 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in