Woody Shaw was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 trumpeter, flugelhorn

Flugelhorn

The flugelhorn is a brass instrument resembling a trumpet but with a wider, conical bore. Some consider it to be a member of the saxhorn family developed by Adolphe Sax ; however, other historians assert that it derives from the valve bugle designed by Michael Saurle , Munich 1832 , thus...

ist, cornetist, composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and band leader, often referred to as the "last innovator

Innovator

An innovator in a general sense, is a person or an organization who is one of the first to introduce into reality something better than before. That often opens up a new area for others and achieves an innovation.-History:...

" in the jazz trumpet lineage. Shaw is credited with revolutionizing the technical and harmonic vocabulary of the instrument and is considered one of the great jazz composers and band leaders of the twentieth century. Born with a photographic memory and perfect pitch, Woody Shaw is looked upon as one of the major conceptualists and important musical geniuses in the history of jazz, thought to have been generations ahead of his time.

Early life and background

Woody Shaw was born on December 24, 1944 in Laurinburg, North Carolina

Laurinburg, North Carolina

Laurinburg is a mid-sized city in Scotland County, North Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Scotland County. Located in southern North Carolina near the South Carolina state border, Laurinburg is southwest of Fayetteville and is home to St. Andrews Presbyterian College...

. He was brought to Newark, New Jersey

Newark, New Jersey

Newark is the largest city in the American state of New Jersey, and the seat of Essex County. As of the 2010 United States Census, Newark had a population of 277,140, maintaining its status as the largest municipality in New Jersey. It is the 68th largest city in the U.S...

 by his parents, Rosalie Pegues and Woody Shaw, Sr., at the age of 1 year old. Shaw's father, Woody Shaw, Sr. was a member of the African American gospel group known as the Diamond Jubilee Singers and both of his parents attended the same secondary private school as Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Laurinburg Institute

Laurinburg Institute

Laurinburg Institute is a traditionally black preparatory school in Laurinburg, North Carolina. The school was started in 1904 by Emmanuel Monty and Tinny McDuffie at the request of Booker T. Washington....

. Shaw's mother is originally from the same town as Gillespie, Cheraw, South Carolina

Cheraw, South Carolina

Cheraw is a town on the Pee Dee River in Chesterfield County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,524 at the 2000 census and center of an urban cluster with a total population of 9,069. It has been nicknamed "The Prettiest Town in Dixie." The harbor tub USS Cheraw was named in the...

.

Shaw began playing bugle

Bugle

Bugle is a brass musical instrument.Bugle may also refer to:* Contrabass bugle, lowest-pitched instrument in the drum and bugle corps hornline* Bugle , common names of flowering plant genus Ajuga...

 at age 9 and performed in the Junior Elks, Junior Mason, and Washington Carver Drum and Bugle Corps in Newark, New Jersey. Though not his first choice for an instrument, he began studying classical trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 with Jerome Ziering at Cleveland Junior High School at the age of 11. In a 1978 interview, Shaw explained:

The trumpet was not my first choice for an instrument. In fact, I ended up playing it by default. When we were asked what we wanted to play in the Eighteenth Avenue School Band, I chose the violin, but I was too late since all the violins were taken. My second choice was the saxophone or the trombone but they were also all spoken for. The only instrument that was left was the trumpet, and I felt why did I have to get stuck with this "tinny" sounding thing.

When I complained to my music teacher that I didn't think it was fair that all the other kids got to play the instruments they wanted, he told me to just be patient. He said he had a good feeling about me and the trumpet, and he assured me I'd grow to love it. Of course my teacher was right, and it didn't take long for me to fall in love with the trumpet. In retrospect, I believe there was some mystical force that brought us together.

Ziering encouraged him to continue his study of classical trumpet and pursue an education at the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 of music with famed trumpet instructor William Vacchiano

William Vacchiano

William Vacchiano was a trumpeter and trumpet instructor.Originally from Portland, Maine, Vacchiano studied trumpet at age 12. At 14 years old, he was playing in the Portland Symphony. Later he performed with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for 38 years and taught at the Juilliard School for...

, but Shaw had a deep interest in jazz. His first influences were Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong

Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....

 and Harry James

Harry James

Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...

. After skipping two grades (Shaw had a photographic memory), he began attending Newark Arts High School

Newark Arts High School

Newark Arts High School is a four-year magnet public high school, serving students in grades 9 through 12 in Newark, New Jersey, United States, operating as part of the Newark Public Schools. In 2010, the 6th graders of William Brown Academy is housed there as its venue is currently being built...

 (alma mater of Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter

Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...

, Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Vaughan

Sarah Lois Vaughan was an American jazz singer, described by Scott Yanow as having "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century."...

, Larry Young

Larry Young

Larry Young may refer to:* Larry Young , jazz organist* Larry Young , baseball umpire* Larry Young , Olympic racewalker* Larry Young , author of Astronauts in Trouble and publisher, AiT/Planet Lar...

, Grachan Moncur

Grachan Moncur III

Grachan Moncur III is an American jazz trombonist who has mostly played free jazz, as well as being a prolific composer. He is the son of jazz bassist Grachan Moncur II and the nephew of jazz saxophonist Al Cooper.-Biography:...

, Melba Moore

Melba Moore

Beatrice Melba Smith , known by her stage name, Melba Moore is an American disco, R&B singer and actress. She is the daughter of saxophonist Teddy Hill and R&B singer Bonnie Davis.-Early life:...

, Savion Glover

Savion Glover

Savion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer. As a learning prodigy, he was taught by notable dancers from previous generations. Glover is currently interested in restoring African roots to tap...

 and many others).

As a teenager, Shaw worked professionally at weddings, dances, and night clubs. He eventually left school but continued his study of the trumpet under the influence of Dizzy Gillespie

Dizzy Gillespie

John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...

, Fats Navarro

Fats Navarro

Theodore "Fats" Navarro was an American jazz trumpet player. He was a pioneer of the bebop style of jazz improvisation in the 1940s. He had a strong stylistic influence on many other players, most notably Clifford Brown.-Life:Navarro was born in Key West, Florida, to Cuban-Black-Chinese parentage...

, Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown

Clifford Brown , aka "Brownie," was an influential and highly rated American jazz trumpeter. He died aged 25, leaving behind only four years' worth of recordings...

, Booker Little

Booker Little

Booker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...

, Lee Morgan

Lee Morgan

Edward Lee Morgan was an American hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...

, and Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

. He later discovered that he had picked up the trumpet during the same month and year that Clifford Brown died, June 1956.

Paris and Eric Dolphy (early 1960s)

In 1963, after many local professional jobs, Woody worked for Willie Bobo

Willie Bobo

Willie Bobo was the stage name of William Correa , an American jazz percussionist.-Biography:William Correa grew up in Spanish Harlem, New York City. He made his name in Latin Jazz, specifically Afro-Cuban jazz, in the 1960s and '70s, with the timbales becoming his favoured instrument...

 (with Chick Corea

Chick Corea

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...

 and Joe Farrell

Joe Farrell

Joseph Carl Firrantello , known as Joe Farrell, was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist. He is best known for a series of albums under his own name on the CTI record label and for playing in the initial incarnation of Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:Farrell was born in Chicago...

) and also performed and recorded as a sideman with Eric Dolphy

Eric Dolphy

Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...

. The following year, Dolphy invited Shaw to join him in Paris, however, Dolphy suddenly died shortly before Shaw's departure. He decided to make the trip nonetheless, and found steady work in Paris with close friend Nathan Davis

Nathan Davis (saxophonist)

Nathan Davis is an American hard bop jazz multi-instrumentalist who plays the tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and flute...

, performing at the famed club Le Chat Qui Peche with musicians such as Bud Powell

Bud Powell

Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...

, Kenny Clarke

Kenny Clarke

Kenny Clarke , born Kenneth Spearman Clarke, nicknamed "Klook" and later known as Liaqat Ali Salaam, was a jazz drummer and an early innovator of the bebop style of drumming...

, Johnny Griffin

Johnny Griffin

John Arnold Griffin III was an American bop and hard bop tenor saxophonist.- Early life and career :Griffin studied music at DuSable High School in Chicago under Walter Dyett, starting out on clarinet before moving on to oboe and then alto sax...

, and Art Taylor

Art Taylor

Arthur S. Taylor, Jr. was an American jazz drummer of the hard bop school.After playing in the bands of Howard McGhee, Coleman Hawkins, Buddy DeFranco, Bud Powell, and George Wallington from 1948 to 1957, he formed his own group, the Wailers...

, as well as notable French musicians, like Jean-Louis Chautemps and Jef Gilson. Woody performed frequently in Berlin, and London with a group that included Nathan Davis, Larry Young, and Billy Brooks

Billy Brooks

William McKinley Brooks III is a former American football wide receiver in the National Football League. He was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals 11th overall in the 1976 NFL Draft. He played college football at Oklahoma.Brooks also played for the San Diego Chargers and Houston Oilers.-External...

, the latter two of whom grew up with Shaw in Newark.

Blue Note Records (mid- to late 1960s)

By the mid-1960s, Shaw had successfully absorbed the conception and influence of his mentor and friend saxophonist Eric Dolphy (Iron Man

Iron Man (Eric Dolphy album)

Iron Man is a 1963 album by American jazz multi-instrumentalist, Eric Dolphy.-Track listing:Side 1:# "Iron Man" – 9:07# "Mandrake" – 4:50# "Come Sunday" – 6:24Side 2:# "Burning Spear" – 11:49# "Ode to C.P." – 8:05...

, 1963), and was meanwhile exploring the harmonic innovations of John Coltrane

John Coltrane

John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...

. Both saxophonists contributed greatly to the development of his style as a trumpeter and composer.

Shaw returned to the U.S. from Paris in 1964 and began his career as one of Blue Note Records

Blue Note Records

Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...

's formidable "house" trumpet players, working steadily with a roster of respected artists. He replaced Carmel Jones in the Horace Silver

Horace Silver

Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....

 quintet (1965–1966), and made his very first Blue Note debut on Larry Young

Larry Young

Larry Young may refer to:* Larry Young , jazz organist* Larry Young , baseball umpire* Larry Young , Olympic racewalker* Larry Young , author of Astronauts in Trouble and publisher, AiT/Planet Lar...

's famed Unity album (1965), upon which three of his compositions ("Zoltan", "Moontrane", and "Beyond All Limits") would appear ("Moontrane" was dedicated to John Coltrane, was written when Shaw as just 18 years old and was the first composition he ever wrote).

He also collaborated frequently and recorded with Chick Corea (1966–1967), Jackie McLean

Jackie McLean

John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...

 (1967), Booker Ervin

Booker Ervin

Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....

 (1968), McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...

 (1968), Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...

 (1969), Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

, and Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodicism, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern...

. In 1968-69, he worked intermittently with Max Roach

Max Roach

Maxwell Lemuel "Max" Roach was an American jazz percussionist, drummer, and composer.A pioneer of bebop, Roach went on to work in many other styles of music, and is generally considered alongside the most important drummers in history...

 touring with him to Iran. He also worked as a studio musician, and worked in pit orchestras and on Broadway musicals.

Columbia Records (1970s)

After working frequently with Bobby Hutcherson, Art Blakey, McCoy Tyner and others, Woody Shaw emerged as a band leader during the early 1970s, which was a time when many jazz artists began to explore jazz-rock and fewer bands performed in the tradition of hard bop

Hard bop

Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...

 as a result of the popularity of and demand for more "commercial" music. A younger statesmen among his admired elders, Shaw saw himself as an heir to the musical legacy of great trumpeters such as Dizzy Gillespie, Fats Navarro, and Clifford Brown, and, being an alumnus of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers

Art Blakey

Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....

, felt responsible for upholding the integrity and appreciation of the tradition of "straight-ahead" jazz

Straight-ahead jazz

Straight-ahead jazz is a term used to refer to a widely accepted style of jazz music playing that can be thought of as roughly encompassing the period between bebop and the 1960s styles of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...

.

He released several albums on the Muse label

Muse Records

Muse Records was an American record label which released jazz and blues music.Muse was founded in the early 1970s by Joe Fields, who had previously worked as an executive for Prestige Records in the 1960s...

, and in 1978 was signed to Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 following an endorsement from Miles Davis. He then recorded the albums Rosewood, Stepping Stones, Woody III, For Sure, and United. Rosewood was nominated for 2 Grammys and was voted Best Jazz Album of 1978 in the Down Beat

Down Beat

Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

Reader's Poll, which also voted Woody Shaw Best Jazz Trumpeter of the Year and #4 Jazz Musician of the Year.

Collaborations (1980s)

Throughout the 1980s, Shaw continued performing and recording as a leader with sidemen such as pianists Onaje Allan Gumbs

Onaje Allan Gumbs

Onaje Allan Gumbs is a New York-based pianist, composer, and bandleader.-Early life:Born in Harlem, Onaje grew up in St. Albans, Queens, and started playing piano at age 7. Henry Mancini was one of his earliest and greatest influences from watching the TV shows "Peter Gunn" and "Mr Lucky" at age 8...

, Mulgrew Miller

Mulgrew Miller

Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...

, and Larry Willis

Larry Willis

Lawrence Elliott Willis is an American jazz pianist and composer. He has performed in a wide range of styles, including jazz fusion rock music, Bebop and Avant-Garde...

, bassist David Williams, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington

Terri Lyne Carrington

Terri Lyne Carrington is a jazz drummer, composer, record producer and entrepreneur. She has played with jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Clark Terry, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Joe Sample, Al Jarreau, Yellowjackets, and many more...

, and trombonist Steve Turre

Steve Turre

Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....

 among others, recording a number of more "traditional" but highly-lyrical albums (Solid, Setting Standards, In My Own Sweet Way) consisting predominantly of standards and tunes from the hard bop repertoire. During this time he also worked on projects with saxophonists Kenny Garrett

Kenny Garrett

Kenny Garrett is a Grammy Award-winning American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist who gained fame in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis's band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career...

 and Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...

, as well as fellow trumpeter Freddie Hubbard

Freddie Hubbard

Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...

 on three historic albums (Time Speaks, Double Take, and The Eternal Triangle), later reissued on Blue Note as the Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw Sessions.

Death

On February 27, 1989, Shaw was struck by a Brooklyn subway car, which severed his left arm. Shaw suffered complications in the hospital and died of kidney failure on May 10, 1989.

He is survived by his mother, two brothers, a sister, and his son, Woody Louis Armstrong Shaw III.

Musical style

Woody Shaw was noted for his mastery and innovative use of "wide" intervals, often fourths and fifths, which are considered relatively unnatural to the trumpet and difficult to employ skillfully due to (a) the tremendous technical facility required to do so (see embouchure

Embouchure

The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece of the brass instruments.The word is of French origin and is related to the root bouche , 'mouth'....

), (b) the architecture of the instrument, (c) the trumpet's inherent harmonic

Harmonic

A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...

 tendencies based on the overtone series, and (d) its traditional association with intervals based more commonly on thirds and diatonic relationships.

In both his improvisations and his compositions, Shaw frequently used polytonality

Polytonality

The musical use of more than one key simultaneously is polytonality . Bitonality is the use of only two different keys at the same time...

, the combination of two or more tonalities or keys (i.e. multiple chords or harmonic structures) at once. In his solos, he often superimposed highly complex permutations of the pentatonic scale

Pentatonic scale

A pentatonic scale is a musical scale with five notes per octave in contrast to a heptatonic scale such as the major scale and minor scale...

 and sequences of intervals that modulated unpredictably through numerous key centers. He was a master of modality

Modality

-Humanities:* In law: the basis of legal argumentation in United States constitutional law* In theology: Modality : the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations...

 and used a wide range of harmonic color, generating unusual contrasts, using tension and resolution, dissonance

Dissonance

Dissonance has several meanings, all related to conflict or incongruity:*Consonance and dissonance in music are properties of an interval or chord*Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental conflict...

, odd rhythmic groupings, and "over the barline" phrases, yet always resolving his ideas according to the form and harmonic structure of a given composition while adhering to the conventions of jazz improvisation and simultaneously creating new ones.

His "attack" was remarkably clean and precise, regardless of tempo (Shaw often played extremely fast passages). He had a rich, dark tone that was distinctive with a near-vocal quality to it; his intonation and articulation were highly-developed, and he greatly utilized the effects of the lower register, usually employing a deep, extended vibrato at the end of his phrases. Shaw also often incorporated the chromatic scale

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

, which gave his melodic lines a subtle fluidity that seemed to allow him to weave "in and out" of chords seamlessly from all "angles."

Shaw was also born with a photographic memory and perfect pitch. Max Roach once stated: "He was truly one of the greatest. I first had occasion to work with Woody on a trip to Iran. One of the most amazing things was his uncanny memory. I was just flabbergasted. After one look, he knew all of the charts, no matter how complex they were."

Woody Shaw's improvisational and composing style bears the influences of his idols Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, as well as many European modern classical and 20th century composers, such as Bela Bartok

Béla Bartók

Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...

, Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály

Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher. He is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.-Life:Born in Kecskemét, Kodály learned to play the violin as a child....

, Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg

Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

, Alban Berg

Alban Berg

Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...

, Anton Webern

Anton Webern

Anton Webern was an Austrian composer and conductor. He was a member of the Second Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of...

, Erik Satie

Erik Satie

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde...

, Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...

, Carlos Chavez

Carlos Chávez

Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez was a Mexican composer, conductor, music theorist, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra. He was influenced by native Mexican cultures. Of his six Symphonies, his Symphony No...

, Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch

Ernest Bloch was a Swiss-born American composer.-Life:Bloch was born in Geneva and began playing the violin at age 9. He began composing soon afterwards. He studied music at the conservatory in Brussels, where his teachers included the celebrated Belgian violinist Eugène Ysaÿe...

, Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...

, Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith

Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...

, Charles Ives

Charles Ives

Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...

, Edgar Varese, Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

, Claude Debussy

Claude Debussy

Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...

, Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

, Colin McPhee

Colin McPhee

Colin McPhee was a Canadian composer and musicologist. He is primarily known for being the first Western composer to make an ethnomusicological study of Bali, and for the quality of that work...

 and others. Shaw also listened closely to traditional Japanese music, Indonesian Gamelan

Gamelan

A gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....

, Indian classical music

Indian classical music

The origins of Indian classical music can be found in the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures in the Hindu tradition. Indian classical music has also been significantly influenced by, or syncretised with, Indian folk music and Persian music. The Samaveda, one of the four Vedas, describes music...

, Brazilian music, and various other musics of the world.

Educator and clinician

Throughout his career, Woody Shaw gave countless clinics, master classes and private lessons to students around the world.

During the 1970s, he and Joe Henderson were faculty members in Jamey Aebersold

Jamey Aebersold

Jamey Aebersold is an American jazz saxophonist and music educator. His "Play-A-Long" series of instructional book and CD collections, using the chord-scale system, the first of which was released in 1967, are an internationally renowned resource for jazz education...

's jazz camp.

NEA

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 Grant-recipients who studied with Woody Shaw include:

• Wynton Marsalis
  Wynton Marsalis
  Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
  
  , Musical Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center
• Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African American Music, Harvard University

Other students and apprentices:

• Chris Botti
  Chris Botti
  Christopher Stephen "Chris" Botti , is an American trumpeter and composer. In 2007, Botti was nominated for two Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album. On December 4, 2009, he was nominated for three more Grammy Awards including Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Long Form Music Video...
  
  
• Wallace Roney
  Wallace Roney
  Wallace Roney is an American hard bop and post-bop trumpeter.Roney took lessons from Clark Terry and Dizzy Gillespie and studied with Miles Davis from 1985 until the latter's death in 1991...
  
  
• Terence Blanchard
  Terence Blanchard
  Terence Oliver Blanchard is an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, arranger, and film score composer. Since he emerged on the scene in 1980 with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and then shortly thereafter with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Blanchard has been a leading artist in jazz...
  
  

Admiration among musicians

As a musician and trumpeter, Shaw was held in remarkably high esteem by his colleagues and is today seen as one of the most technically and harmonically advanced trumpet players in the history of jazz and of the instrument itself. Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, a notoriously harsh critic of fellow musicians, once said of Shaw: "Now there's a great trumpet player. He can play different from all of them." Trumpeter Dave Douglas

Dave Douglas (trumpeter)

Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter and composer whose music derives from many non-jazz musical styles, including classical music, folk music from European countries and Klezmer. He has been a member of the experimental big band Orange Then Blue...

 states: "It's not only the brilliant imagination that captivates with Woody Shaw - it's how natural those fiendishly difficult lines feel... Woody Shaw is now one of the most revered figures for trumpeters today." Shaw is credited with having extended the harmonic and technical vocabulary of the trumpet. Upon hearing of Shaw's death in 1989, Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Marsalis

Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...

 stated: "Woody added to the vocabulary of the trumpet. His whole approach influenced me tremendously."

Spirituality

Woody Shaw was a devout practitioner of a Chinese martial art

Chinese martial arts

Chinese martial arts, also referred to by the Mandarin Chinese term wushu and popularly as kung fu , are a number of fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common traits, identified as "families" , "sects" or...

 known as T'ai chi ch'uan (Wu style tai chi chuan

Wu style tai chi chuan

The Wu family-style t'ai chi ch'uan of Wu Ch'uan-yu and Wu Chien-ch'uan is the second most popular form of t'ai chi ch'uan in the world today, after the Yang style, and fourth in terms of family seniority. This style is different from the Wu style of t'ai chi ch'uan founded by Wu Yu-hsiang...

). He also practiced meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

 or self-hypnosis

Self-hypnosis

Self-hypnosis is a form of hypnosis which is self-induced, and normally makes use of self-suggestion . Listening to pre-recorded audio or other media is often mistaken for self-hypnosis, but is just another form of hypnosis....

, and Sirsha-Asana - a form of Yoga

Yoga

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...

.

Travels

Throughout his life, Woody Shaw travelled all over Europe, moving to Paris, France at the young age of 19 following an invitation from Eric Dolphy. As a sideman with Max Roach, he traveled to Iran in 1969. He also toured such places as Japan, England, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Brussels, and the Czech Republic.

During a 1980s State Department Tour, Shaw ventured eastward to such countries as Egypt, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates

The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...

. Most recently, it has been discovered that Shaw spent significant time performing and giving clinics in India, working in such historic cities as New Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, and Calcutta. When asked by film producer Chuck France in an interview whether he thought traveling was important, Shaw adamantly responded: "Most definitely. I think every great artist should share his music with the world."

As leader

• 1971: Blackstone Legacy (Contemporary Records) with Ron Carter
  Ron Carter
  Ron Carter is an American jazz double-bassist. His appearances on over 2,500 albums make him one of the most-recorded bassists in jazz history, along with Milt Hinton, Ray Brown and Leroy Vinnegar. Carter is also an acclaimed cellist who has recorded numerous times on that...
  
  , Clint Houston
  Clint Houston
  Clinton Joseph Houston was an American jazz double-bassist.Houston played with George Cables and Lenny White in the house band at Slugs, a club in New York City, then played with Nina Simone , Roy Haynes , Sonny Greenwich and Don Thompson , Roy Ayers , Charles Tolliver , Stan Getz , and Woody Shaw...
  
  , Lenny White
  Lenny White
  Leonard White III, better known as Lenny White is an American jazz fusion drummer, who is best known for playing in Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:...
  
  , George Cables
  George Cables
  George Andrew Cables is a jazz pianist, born November 14, 1944 in New York City.He has played with Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, and others.His own recordings include the 1980 Cables Vision with Freddie Hubbard among others....
  
  , Gary Bartz
  Gary Bartz
  Gary Bartz is an American alto and soprano saxophonist and clarinetist.Bartz graduated from the Baltimore City College high school and The Juilliard School...
  
  , Bennie Maupin
  Bennie Maupin
  Bennie Maupin is a Detroit Michigan jazz multireedist. He performs on various saxophones, flute and bass clarinet.He is probably best known for his participation in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi sextet and Headhunters band, and for performing on Miles Davis's seminal fusion record, Bitches Brew...
  
  
• 1972: Song of Songs (OJC) with Bennie Maupin
  Bennie Maupin
  Bennie Maupin is a Detroit Michigan jazz multireedist. He performs on various saxophones, flute and bass clarinet.He is probably best known for his participation in Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi sextet and Headhunters band, and for performing on Miles Davis's seminal fusion record, Bitches Brew...
  
  , George Cables
  George Cables
  George Andrew Cables is a jazz pianist, born November 14, 1944 in New York City.He has played with Art Blakey, Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, Art Pepper, and others.His own recordings include the 1980 Cables Vision with Freddie Hubbard among others....
  
  , Steve Turre
  Steve Turre
  Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....
  
  , Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee is an American post bop jazz bassist, described by the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz as "a full-toned bassist who creates rich, singing phrases in a wide range of contemporary jazz contexts." Allmusic called him "One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists".-Biography:McBee...
  
  , Onaje Allan Gumbs
  Onaje Allan Gumbs
  Onaje Allan Gumbs is a New York-based pianist, composer, and bandleader.-Early life:Born in Harlem, Onaje grew up in St. Albans, Queens, and started playing piano at age 7. Henry Mancini was one of his earliest and greatest influences from watching the TV shows "Peter Gunn" and "Mr Lucky" at age 8...
  
  
• 1974: The Moontrane (Muse) with Azar Lawrence
  Azar Lawrence
  Azar Lawrence is an American jazz saxophonist, known for his contributions as sideman to McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw. Lawrence was the tenor saxophonist Tyner used following John Coltrane's death....
  
  , Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee is an American post bop jazz bassist, described by the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz as "a full-toned bassist who creates rich, singing phrases in a wide range of contemporary jazz contexts." Allmusic called him "One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists".-Biography:McBee...
  
  , Buster Williams
  Buster Williams
  Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...
  
  
• 1975: San Francisco Express (Reynolds) with Patrick Gleeson
  Patrick Gleeson
  Patrick Gleeson is a musician, synthesizer pioneer, composer and producer, from California, USA.Gleeson began experimenting with electronic music in the mid-'60s at the San Francisco Tape Music Center using a Buchla synth and other devices....
  
  , Julian Priester
  Julian Priester
  Julian Priester is an American jazz trombonist and composer.He has played with many artists including Sun Ra, Max Roach, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock.-Biography:...
  
  , Norman Williams
  Norman Williams
  Norman Francis Williams CGM DFM & Bar served as an air gunner in RAAF bombers in the Second World War, becoming its most highly decorated non-commissioned officer...
  
  
• 1976: Love Dance (Muse) with Steve Turre
  Steve Turre
  Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....
  
  , Billy Harper
  Billy Harper
  Billy Harper is a Jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument.-Biography:...
  
  , Joe Bonner
  Joe Bonner
  Joe Bonner is a jazz pianist who is featured in The Bonner Party, a jazz quartet.He was born in Rocky Mount, North Carolina and studied at Virginia State College, but indicates he learned more by musicians he worked with. In the seventies he played with Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, and Billy...
  
  , Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee is an American post bop jazz bassist, described by the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz as "a full-toned bassist who creates rich, singing phrases in a wide range of contemporary jazz contexts." Allmusic called him "One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists".-Biography:McBee...
  
  , Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis is an American jazz drummer, a major force in the genre since the 1980s.-As leader:*1992: Family Portrait - with John Stubblefield, Edward Simon, Cecil McBee, Don Alias, Jumma Santos...
  
  , Guilherme Franco
  Guilherme Franco
  Guilherme Franco was born November 25 1946 in São Paulo, Brazil. He is a percussionist in the jazz and World fusion music genres.Guilherme Franco has recorded on the albums of many jazz performers such as McCoy Tyner, Lonnie Liston Smith and Woody Shaw...
  
  
• 1976: Little Red's Fantasy (32 Jazz) with Ronnie Mathews
  Ronnie Mathews
  Ronnie Mathews was a jazz pianist primarily known for his work with other musicians, including Max Roach from 1963 to 1968 and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. He acted as lead in recording from 1963 and 1978 - 1979...
  
  , Stafford James
  Stafford James
  -Biography:As a young man, Stafford James enlisted in the Air Force; after his discharge he studied at the University of Chicago with Rudolf Fahsbender. In 1969 he moved to New York City and studied under Julius Levine at the Mannes College for Music. Here he met Pharaoh Sanders, with whom he...
  
  , Frank Strozier
  Frank Strozier
  Frank Strozier is an alto saxophonist renowned for his playing in the hard bop idiom.Strozier grew up in Memphis Memphis, Tennessee...
  
  , Eddie Moore
  Eddie Moore
  Eddie Deon Moore is an American football player who currently plays linebacker for the Denver Broncos. He went to high school in South Pittsburg, Tennessee...
  
  
• 1977: Rosewood (Columbia) with Steve Turre
  Steve Turre
  Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....
  
  , Joe Henderson
  Joe Henderson
  Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...
  
  , Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis is an American jazz drummer, a major force in the genre since the 1980s.-As leader:*1992: Family Portrait - with John Stubblefield, Edward Simon, Cecil McBee, Don Alias, Jumma Santos...
  
  
• 1978: Stepping Stones: Live at the Village Vanguard (Columbia) with Carter Jefferson
  Carter Jefferson
  Carter Jefferson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Jefferson played clarinet and alto saxophone early in his career, playing in the backing bands for The Temptations, The Supremes, and Little Richard in the 1960s. In 1971, he entered New York University, and played with Mongo Santamaría and...
  
  , Onaje Allan Gumbs
  Onaje Allan Gumbs
  Onaje Allan Gumbs is a New York-based pianist, composer, and bandleader.-Early life:Born in Harlem, Onaje grew up in St. Albans, Queens, and started playing piano at age 7. Henry Mancini was one of his earliest and greatest influences from watching the TV shows "Peter Gunn" and "Mr Lucky" at age 8...
  
  , Clint Houston
  Clint Houston
  Clinton Joseph Houston was an American jazz double-bassist.Houston played with George Cables and Lenny White in the house band at Slugs, a club in New York City, then played with Nina Simone , Roy Haynes , Sonny Greenwich and Don Thompson , Roy Ayers , Charles Tolliver , Stan Getz , and Woody Shaw...
  
  , Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis is an American jazz drummer, a major force in the genre since the 1980s.-As leader:*1992: Family Portrait - with John Stubblefield, Edward Simon, Cecil McBee, Don Alias, Jumma Santos...
  
  
• 1981: The Iron Men (Muse) with Anthony Braxton
  Anthony Braxton
  Anthony Braxton is an American composer, saxophonist, clarinettist, flautist, pianist, and philosopher. Braxton has released well over 100 albums since the 1960s...
  
  , Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee is an American post bop jazz bassist, described by the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz as "a full-toned bassist who creates rich, singing phrases in a wide range of contemporary jazz contexts." Allmusic called him "One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists".-Biography:McBee...
  
  , Arthur Blythe
  Arthur Blythe
  Arthur Blythe is an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. His stylistic voice has a distinct vibrato and he plays within the post-bop subgenre of jazz.- Biography :...
  
  , Muhal Richard Abrams
  Muhal Richard Abrams
  Muhal Richard Abrams is an American educator, administrator, composer, arranger, clarinetist, cellist, and jazz pianist in the Free jazz medium. Abrams compresses both contemporary and traditional ideas into lean, elegant pieces.- Biography :Abrams attended DuSable High School in Chicago...
  
  , Joe Chambers
  Joe Chambers
  Joe Chambers is an American jazz drummer, pianist, vibraphonist and composer. He attended the Philadelphia Conservatory for one year. In the 1960s and 70s Chambers gigged with many high-profile artists such as Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Lou Donaldson, Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Giuffre...
  
  , Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis
  Victor Lewis is an American jazz drummer, a major force in the genre since the 1980s.-As leader:*1992: Family Portrait - with John Stubblefield, Edward Simon, Cecil McBee, Don Alias, Jumma Santos...
  
  )
• 1981: United (CBS/Sony - reissued on CD by Wounded Bird Records in 2011) with Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...
  
  , Steve Turre
  Steve Turre
  Steve Turre is a trombonist, recording artist, arranger, and educator. In 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2006 he won the Down Beat Reader's Poll for best trombonist....
  
  , Stafford James
  Stafford James
  -Biography:As a young man, Stafford James enlisted in the Air Force; after his discharge he studied at the University of Chicago with Rudolf Fahsbender. In 1969 he moved to New York City and studied under Julius Levine at the Mannes College for Music. Here he met Pharaoh Sanders, with whom he...
  
  , Tony Reedus
  Tony Reedus
  Tony Reedus was an American jazz drummer.Reedus first gained notice playing in Woody Shaw's band in the 1980s...
  
  , Gary Bartz
  Gary Bartz
  Gary Bartz is an American alto and soprano saxophonist and clarinetist.Bartz graduated from the Baltimore City College high school and The Juilliard School...
  
  )
• 1982: Lotus Flower (Enja) with Steve Turre, Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...
  
  
• 1983: Setting Standards (Muse) with Cedar Walton
  Cedar Walton
  Cedar Anthony Walton, Junior is an American hard bop jazz pianist.-Biography:Walton grew up in Dallas, Texas. His mother was an aspiring concert pianist, and was Walton's initial teacher. She also took him to jazz performances around Dallas...
  
  , Buster Williams
  Buster Williams
  Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...
  
  , Victor Jones
• 1985: Double Take with Freddie Hubbard
  Freddie Hubbard
  Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
  
  , Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee
  Cecil McBee is an American post bop jazz bassist, described by the Guinness Who's Who of Jazz as "a full-toned bassist who creates rich, singing phrases in a wide range of contemporary jazz contexts." Allmusic called him "One of post-bop's most advanced and versatile bassists".-Biography:McBee...
  
  , Carl Allen
  Carl Allen (drummer)
  Carl Allen is an American jazz drummer.He has worked with a wide variety of musicians, including Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, George Coleman and Phil Woods. and the Benny Green Trio....
  
  , Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...
  
   and Kenny Garrett
  Kenny Garrett
  Kenny Garrett is a Grammy Award-winning American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist who gained fame in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis's band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career...
  
  
• 1986: Solid (Camden) with Kenny Garrett
  Kenny Garrett
  Kenny Garrett is a Grammy Award-winning American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist who gained fame in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis's band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career...
  
  , Kenny Barron
  Kenny Barron
  Kenny Barron , is an American jazz pianist. He is the younger brother of tenor saxophonist Bill Barron, and known for his lyrical, adaptive style.-Biography:...
  
  , Kirk Lightsey
  Kirk Lightsey
  Kirkland "Kirk" Lightsey is an American jazz pianist.Lightsey had piano instruction from age five and studied piano and clarinet through high school. After service in the Army, Lightsey worked in Detroit and California in the 1960s as an accompanist to singers...
  
  , Peter Leitch
  Peter Leitch
  Peter Leitch VC was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.-Details:...
  
  
• 1987: The Eternal Triangle
  The Eternal Triangle
  The Eternal Triangle is an album by trumpeters Freddie Hubbard and Woody Shaw recorded in June 1987 and released on the Blue Note label. It features performances by Hubbard, Ray Drummond, Carl Allen, Mulgrew Miller and Kenny Garrett...
  
  with Freddie Hubbard
  Freddie Hubbard
  Frederick Dewayne "Freddie" Hubbard was an American jazz trumpeter. He was known primarily for playing in the bebop, hard bop and post bop styles from the early 1960s and on...
  
  , Ray Drummond
  Ray Drummond
  Ray Drummond is a jazz bassist and teacher. He also has an MBA from Stanford University, hence his linkage to the Stanford Jazz Workshop...
  
  , Carl Allen
  Carl Allen (drummer)
  Carl Allen is an American jazz drummer.He has worked with a wide variety of musicians, including Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, George Coleman and Phil Woods. and the Benny Green Trio....
  
  , Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller
  Mulgrew Miller is an American jazz pianist who performs in a number of jazz idioms. He began his career as member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers.-Biography:...
  
   and Kenny Garrett
  Kenny Garrett
  Kenny Garrett is a Grammy Award-winning American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist who gained fame in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis's band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career...
  
  
• 1987: Imagination (32 Jazz
  32 Jazz
  -Discography:...
  
  , reissued on Savoy Jazz in 2003) with Steve Turre, Kirk Lightsey, Ray Drummond, Carl Allen
• 1997: Bemsha Swing Live (Blue Note Records
  Blue Note Records
  Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
  
  ) with Geri Allen
  Geri Allen
  Geri Allen is an American composer/pianist educator jazz pianist, raised in Detroit, Michigan, and educated in the Detroit Public Schools. Allen has worked with many of the greats of modern music, including Ornette Coleman, Ron Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Tony Williams, Dave Holland, Jack DeJohnette,...
  
  , Robert Hurst
  Robert Hurst (musician)
  Robert Hurst is an American jazz bassist.Hurst played guitar early in his career before concentrating on bass. He worked with Out of the Blue in 1985 and also did work with musicians such as Tony Williams, Mulgrew Miller, Harry Connick Jr., Geri Allen, Russell Malone, and Steve Coleman...
  
   and Roy Brooks
  Roy Brooks
  Roy Brooks was an American hard bop jazz drummer.-Biography:Brooks was born in Detroit and drummed since childhood. He was an outstanding varsity basketball player as a teenager and was offered a scholarship to the Detroit Institute of Technology; he attended the school for three semesters and...
  
  , recorded at Baker's Keyboard Lounge
  Baker's Keyboard Lounge
  Baker's Keyboard Lounge located on 20510 Livernois Street in Detroit, Michigan, claims to be the world's oldest operating jazz club, operating since May 1934.-Early History:...
  
   in 1986, released postumously in 1997.

As sideman

With Gary Bartz

Gary Bartz

Gary Bartz is an American alto and soprano saxophonist and clarinetist.Bartz graduated from the Baltimore City College high school and The Juilliard School...

• Home (1969)

With Art Blakey

Art Blakey

Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....

• Child's Dance (1972)
• Anthenagain (1973)
• Buhania (1973)

With Roy Brooks

Roy Brooks

Roy Brooks was an American hard bop jazz drummer.-Biography:Brooks was born in Detroit and drummed since childhood. He was an outstanding varsity basketball player as a teenager and was offered a scholarship to the Detroit Institute of Technology; he attended the school for three semesters and...

• Duet in Detroit (1983)

With Chick Corea

Chick Corea

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...

• Tones for Joan's Bones
  Tones for Joan's Bones
  Tones for Joan's Bones is Chick Corea's first album as a leader. The album features four long tracks.The album is rare in its original form, and is more commonly found in compilation with Miroslav Vitouš' album Mountain In The Clouds...
  
  (1966)
• The Complete "Is" Sessions
  The Complete "Is" Sessions
  The Complete "Is" Sessions is a 2002 Blue Note Records compilation / re-issue album by Chick Corea of material recorded in May 1969. The material of the "Is" sessions was released originally in 1969 as two separate albums on two different record labels...
  
  (1969)

With Nathan Davis

Nathan Davis (saxophonist)

Nathan Davis is an American hard bop jazz multi-instrumentalist who plays the tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and flute...

• Peace Treaty (1965)
• Happy Girl (1965)

With Eric Dolphy

Eric Dolphy

Eric Allan Dolphy was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s...

• Conversations
  Conversations (Eric Dolphy album)
  Conversations is a 1963 album by American jazz multi-instrumentalist, Eric Dolphy.- Track listing :Side 1:# "Jitterbug Waltz" – 7:17# "Music Matador" – 9:35 Side 2:# "Love Me" – 3:22# "Alone Together" – 13:36- Personnel :...
  
  (1963)
• Iron Man
  Iron Man (Eric Dolphy album)
  Iron Man is a 1963 album by American jazz multi-instrumentalist, Eric Dolphy.-Track listing:Side 1:# "Iron Man" – 9:07# "Mandrake" – 4:50# "Come Sunday" – 6:24Side 2:# "Burning Spear" – 11:49# "Ode to C.P." – 8:05...
  
  (1963)

With Booker Ervin

Booker Ervin

Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....

• Tex Book Tenor
  Tex Book Tenor
  Tex Book Tenor is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring the last performances Ervin recorded as a leader in 1968 for the Blue Note label...
  
  (1968 [2005]) - originally released in 1976 as part of Back from the Gig
  Back from the Gig
  Back from the Gig is a double LP by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1963 and 1968 but not released on the Blue Note label until 1976...
  
  

With Sonny Fortune

Sonny Fortune

Sonny Fortune is an American jazz alto saxophonist and flautist. He also plays soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone and clarinet.-Biography:...

• Serengeti Minstral (1977)

With Kenny Garrett

Kenny Garrett

Kenny Garrett is a Grammy Award-winning American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist who gained fame in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis's band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career...

• Introducing Kenny Garrett (1984)

With Benny Golson

Benny Golson

Benny Golson is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.-Biography:While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and...

• Time Speaks (1982)

With Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon

Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...

• Homecoming (1976–79)
• Sophisticated Giant (1977)
• Gotham City (1981)

With George Gruntz

George Gruntz

George Gruntz is a Swiss jazz pianist, organist, harpsichordist, keyboardist and composer most noteworthy for his work with artists such as Phil Woods, Roland Kirk, Don Cherry, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin and Mel Lewis.From 1972 to 1994 he served as artistic director for...

• For Flying Out Proud (1977)
• GG-CJB (1978)

With Lionel Hampton

Lionel Hampton

Lionel Leo Hampton was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, bandleader and actor. Like Red Norvo, he was one of the first jazz vibraphone players. Hampton ranks among the great names in jazz history, having worked with a who's who of jazz musicians, from Benny Goodman and Buddy...

• Music of Charles Mingus (1977)

With Louis Hayes

Louis Hayes

Louis Hayes is an American jazz drummer.-Biography:His father played drums and piano and his mother the piano and he refers to the early influence of hearing jazz, especially that of big bands, on the radio...

• Ichi-Ban (1976) with Junior Cook
  Junior Cook
  Herman "Junior" Cook was a hard bop tenor saxophone player.-Biography:Cook was born in Pensacola, Florida. After playing with Dizzy Gillespie in 1958, Cook gained some fame for his longtime membership in the Horace Silver Quintet ; when he and Blue Mitchell left that band, Cook played in...
  
  
• Lausanne 1977 (1977)
• The Real Thing (1977)

With Joe Henderson

Joe Henderson

Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...

• At the Lighthouse (1970)

With Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...

• Grass Roots (1968 [2000])
• Lift Every Voice
  Lift Every Voice (Andrew Hill album)
  Lift Every Voice is an album by American jazz pianist Andrew Hill featuring performances recorded in 1969 and released on the Blue Note label in 1970. The original album features Hill with a large choir performing five original compositions and the 2001 CD reissue added six additional compositions...
  
  (1969 [2001])
• Passing Ships
  Passing Ships
  Passing Ships is an album by American jazz pianist Andrew Hill featuring performances recorded in 1969 but not released on the Blue Note label until 2003. The album features Hill with a large horn section performing seven original compositions.-Reception:...
  
  (1969 [2003])

With Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson

Bobby Hutcherson is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodicism, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern...

• Bobby Hutcherson Live at Montreux
  Bobby Hutcherson Live at Montreux
  Bobby Hutcherson Live at Montreux is a live album by American jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1973 and released on the Blue Note label...
  
  (1973)
• Cirrus
  Cirrus (album)
  Cirrus is an album by American jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson recorded in 1974 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album 4 stars and stated "While it doesn't quite match the heights of their early collaborations, Cirrus finds...
  
  (1974)

With Azar Lawrence

Azar Lawrence

Azar Lawrence is an American jazz saxophonist, known for his contributions as sideman to McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and Woody Shaw. Lawrence was the tenor saxophonist Tyner used following John Coltrane's death....

• Bridge into the New Age (1974)

With Jackie McLean

Jackie McLean

John Lenwood McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader and educator, born in New York City.-Biography:McLean's father, John Sr., played guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's orchestra...

• 'Bout Soul
  'Bout Soul
  Bout Soul is an album by American saxophonist Jackie McLean recorded in 1967 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album 4 stars and stated "This is intensely cerebral music that is nevertheless played with a fiery passion....
  
  (1967)
• Demon's Dance
  Demon's Dance
  Demon's Dance is an album by American saxophonist Jackie McLean recorded in 1967 for Blue Note, but not released until 1970.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Steve Huey awarded the album 4½ stars and stated "The record retreats a bit from McLean's nearly free playing on New and Old Gospel and Bout...
  
  (1967)

With Hank Mobley

Hank Mobley

Henry Mobley was an American hard bop and soul jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Mobley was described by Leonard Feather as the "middleweight champion of the tenor saxophone", a metaphor used to describe his tone that was neither as aggressive as John Coltrane nor as mellow as Stan Getz...

• Reach Out
  Reach Out (Hank Mobley album)
  Reach Out is an album by jazz saxophonist Hank Mobley recorded on January 19, 1968 and released on the Blue Note label. It features performances by Mobley with Woody Shaw, George Benson, Lamont Johnson, Bob Cranshaw, and Billy Higgins.- Track listing :...
  
  (1968)
• Thinking of Home
  Thinking of Home
  Thinking of Home is an album by jazz saxophonist Hank Mobley recorded on July 31, 1970 and released on the Blue Note label. It features performances by Mobley with Woody Shaw, Cedar Walton, Eddie Diehl, Mickey Bass, and Leroy Williams.- Track listing :...
  
  (1970)

With Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders

Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...

• Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun)
  Deaf Dumb Blind (Summun Bukmun Umyun)
  Deaf Dumb Blind is an album by the American jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. It was recorded at A & R Studios in New York City on July 1, 1970, and released on Impulse Records in the same year...
  
  (1970)

With Horace Silver

Horace Silver

Horace Silver , born Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silva in Norwalk, Connecticut, is an American jazz pianist and composer....

• The Cape Verdean Blues
  The Cape Verdean Blues
  The Cape Verdean Blues is an album by the Horace Silver Quintet, led by jazz pianist Horace Silver. The quintet is joined on half of these tracks by trombonist J.J. Johnson, with whom Silver had been eager to work for some time...
  
  (1965)
• The Jody Grind
  The Jody Grind
  The Jody Grind is a 1966 album by the Horace Silver Quintet, led by jazz pianist Horace Silver.-Track listing:# "The Jody Grind" – 5:53# "Mary Lou" – 7:12# "Mexican Hip Dance" – 5:56# "Blue Silver" – 6:00# "Grease Piece" – 7:34# "Dimples" – 7:18...
  
  (1966)

With McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner

McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...

• Expansions
  Expansions (album)
  Expansions is the tenth album by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner and his fourth released on the Blue Note label. It was recorded in August 1968 and features performances by Tyner with Woody Shaw, Gary Bartz, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, Herbie Lewis, and Freddie Waits...
  
  (1968)

With Mal Waldron

Mal Waldron

Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...

• The Git Go - Live at the Village Vanguard
  The Git Go - Live at the Village Vanguard
  The Git Go - Live at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded at the Village Vanguard and released on the Italian Soul Note label in 1987.-Reception:...
  
  (Soul Note, 1986)
• The Seagulls of Kristiansund
  The Seagulls of Kristiansund
  The Seagulls of Kristiansund is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded at the Village Vanguard and released on the Italian Soul Note label in 1987.-Reception:The Allmusic review awarded the album 4½ stars....
  
  (Soul Note, 1986)

With Tyrone Washington

Tyrone Washington (musician)

Tyrone Washington is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.He is known best for his 1967 debut album for Blue Note Records.-As Leader:*1967: Natural Essence...

• Natural Essence
  Natural Essence
  Natural Essence is the debut album by American saxophonist Tyrone Washington featuring performances recorded in 1967 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:...
  
  (1967)

With Harry Whitaker

• Black Renaissance (1976)

With Buster Williams

Buster Williams

Charles Anthony Williams is an American jazz bassist.-Biography:Williams has gained prestige among jazz musicians as a solid supportive player. Since the early 1960s, he has made subtle swing, a precise rhythm and superb technique the landmark of his playing...

• Pinnacle (1975)

With Larry Young

Larry Young (jazz)

Larry Young Larry Young Larry Young (also known as Khalid Yasin (Abdul Aziz) (October 7, 1940 in Newark, New Jersey—March 30, 1978 in New York City) was an American jazz organist and occasional pianist. Young pioneered a modal approach to the Hammond B-3 (in contrast to Jimmy Smith's...

• Unity (1965)

With Joe Zawinul

Joe Zawinul

Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

• Zawinul
  Zawinul (album)
  -Track listing:# "Doctor Honoris Causa" – 13:48# "In a Silent Way" – 4:51# "His Last Journey" – 4:36# "Double Image" – 10:32# "Arrival in New York" – 2:01*Recorded Recorded at Atlantic Recording Studios, New York, N.Y-Personnel:...
  
  (1970)

External links

• Official Woody Shaw Website
• Woody Shaw discography at Discogs
  Discogs
  Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...
  
  ..
• Woody Shaw at All About Jazz
  All About Jazz
  All About Jazz is a leading jazz music website for enthusiasts and industry professionals based in Philadelphia in the United States.Founded by Michael Ricci in 1995, the Web-Site is maintained by a volunteer staff of writers, editors, and musicians, and provides coverage of all genres of jazz from...
  
  .