{"id":2266,"date":"2010-12-17T13:45:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T21:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=2266"},"modified":"2010-12-17T13:45:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T21:45:20","slug":"correspondence_moody_concerned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2010\/12\/correspondence_moody_concerned\/","title":{"rendered":"Correspondence, With Music: Moody Concerned"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Norwegian pianist, composer and bandleader Per Husby<\/a> writes:<\/p>\n

I’d like to share a little remembrance of mine of James Moody – from Oslo, Norway somewhere around 1990: I had been playing piano with Moody on some gigs at \"Per<\/a>the Molde jazz festival in 1979, and had met him sporadically here and there after that. On this occasion in 1990 he had done a gig in Oslo with a Swedish rhythm section – and Moody had played fantastically as usual. I spoke to him in the interval, and he enthusiastically showed me a bunch of pictures of him and his wife – who was apparently half Norwegian.
\nIt turned out that he had the next day off – so I took him up for lunch in a restaurant in the forest outside of Oslo, on a hilltop overlooking the city. He was really enjoying the meal, but at the same time he seemed to be bothered about something, so after a while I asked him what was the matter. He then looked almost frightened around him to ensure nobody was listening in (the place was nearly empty except for us) – leaned over towards me, and whispered very reluctantly with eyes still going left and right: \u00e2\u20ac\u00a8\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8”Per – I wanna ask you a question…. Do you think I thound old??” I do not remember what my answer was – because all I could think of was that here is one of the world’s leading saxophonists of all time sitting way out in the wilderness together with a local rhythm section pianist and\"Moody,<\/a> asking for assessment – from me, who had just experienced him being as fantastic as ever only the night before.\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8
\nThis little incident has stayed in my mind since then as a wonderful snapshot of the truly great, respectful and human soul James Moody represented.\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8For fun, I’m putting in a link to a little private clip from Molde in 1979 typical of Moody, where he – without any prior notice to us – goes into “Oop-Pop-A-Da” and even manages to get our trumpeter (who is a very soft-spoken person and surely never a vocalist at all) to join in some two-part scat harmony. For all its recording faults this cut, to me, represents jazz as entertainment on a high level – and also has some tenor playing going all the way back to his 1940s background.
\nhttp:\/\/www.jazzdiscography.com\/Temp\/Moody.mp3<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a8<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Husby’s story was in a message to the Jazz Research Group. Rifftides<\/i> uses it with his permission.
\nTo see previous entries about Moody, who died on December 9, go here<\/a>, then here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Norwegian pianist, composer and bandleader Per Husby writes: I’d like to share a little remembrance of mine of James Moody – from Oslo, Norway somewhere around 1990: I had been playing piano with Moody on some gigs at the Molde jazz festival in 1979, and had met him sporadically here and there after that. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}