THERE HE GOES, THERE HE GOES: James Moody, the big-spirited jazz saxophonist who passed away recently at age 85, may go down in jazz history for two very different time-related landmarks. For one, he played beautifully into his “golden years” and illustrated the adage that great jazz musicians can command special depth to the very end—think Moody, or think Hank Jones, another longevity-blessed jazz great who recently passed on. But on the microscopic scale of achievement, Moody illustrated the power of a great solo, his utterly ingenious improvisation played on the standard “In the Mood” in Stockholm one afternoon in 1949. It was transformed into a serpentine vocalese song of its own, “Moody’s Mood for Love,” with lyrics added by Eddie Jefferson and performed by Moody at most of his gigs, post-1949.
What a difference a few minutes make.
Close to home, Moody’s last two decades were spent as a Southern Californian, living down in San Diego with his third wife, Linda, and keeping up with a growing demand for his musical services in the final phase of his life—after working for nearly a half century with Dizzy Gillespie. Moody concertized at the Lobero Theatre in 2004, giving us a hearty dose of well-played standards and his usual joking patter (including this one: “A little boy is getting a bath. He points to his penis and asks his mother, ‘Is this my brain?’ Mother says, ‘Not yet …’). A few years later, Moody appeared as a cameo soloist in the first Solvang Jazz Festival.