Phil Woods - The Steve Voce Interview

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“"There was a very specific reason why Phil played on nearly every album I've made since 1956, because he not only was the best jazz alto sax player there was, he was a truly beautiful person," said Quincy Jones, whose collaboration with Woods dates to a State Department jazz tour with the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra in 1956.

"It is an understatement to say Phil Woods was one of the greatest jazz alto-saxophone players to ever set foot on this planet."

• Quincy Jones

Arriving on the jazz scene in the late '40s, Woods was captivated by the fast-paced sound of bebop and quickly became familiar with the piquant harmonies and surging, offbeat rhythms of the music that was fast replacing the easygoing sounds and familiar memories of the Swing era. Musically adventurous, Woods was drawn to the compelling new chordal textures and the inventive possibilities that bebop provided.”

- Don Heckman, Los Angeles Times, 10-2-2015

First published in the October 1996 edition of JazzJournal, Steve Voce was kind enough to allow me to incorporate it in larger features about Phil which I prepared for my blog. Phil Woods passed away on September 29, 2015 at the age of 83 and it doesn’t seem possible that he’s been gone so long.

He was such an energetic person that I thought he would live forever. Given how vital his music was, many Jazz fans wished it could be so, at least in the abstract.

Phil had what all Jazz performers dream of having - an instantly recognizable sound. A few bars and the listener immediately knew without a doubt that they were digging Phil Woods’s powerful alto saxophone tone.

Phil claims that his career was made possible by being in the right place at the right time.

I think it has more to do with bassist Chuck Israels assertions that “... intensity and focus were an essential aspect of Phil's artistic personality, but it is also important to recognize the intelligence that accompanied this mania. Phil was aware enough of his own experience and of the world he inhabited to make informed and considered decisions about his artistic life. It is these decisions as well as his great skill and intensity that shaped his commitment to the pursuit of his musical potential. It is a compliment to his determination that that potential was so often realized.” [I changed Chuck’s tribute to past tense.]

Whatever the case - fortuitousness or fortitude - I’m just glad that I was in the right place at the right time to be able to enjoy Phil’s music for almost six decades.

Here’s Steve’s chat with Phil: