Woody Shaw

A fierce exponent of the post-bop tradition in an era where many of his colleagues turned to jazz fusion, trumpeter Woody Shaw was one of the most technically advanced figures of the '70s and '80s. He deftly assimilated the harmonic developments and structural openness of the '60s within a more straight-ahead context, blazing a crucial path for the neo-bop explosion led by Wynton Marsalis. Born in Laurinburg, NC, in 1944 but raised in Newark, NJ, Shaw started on the bugle at age nine before moving to the trumpet three years later. His education began with classical music, but he quickly fell in love with jazz, and as a teenager he was playing at local weddings, parties and other functions. He broke into the New York City scene in the early ’60s, working with percussionist Willie Bobo before playing on Eric Dolphy’s 1964 album Iron Man. After spending a year touring Europe with reedist Nathan Davis and organist Larry Young, he returned to New York, where he became an in-demand sideman, working and recording with Art Blakey, Bobby Hutcherson, Jackie McLean and Herbie Hancock. In 1970 he made Blackstone Legacy, his first album as a leader, before relocating to San Francisco for several years. When he returned to the Big Apple in 1974 he played with experimental figures like Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams in a more mainstream setting. Shaw soon became a respected bandleader, signing with Columbia Records and further refining his technically dazzling post-bop sound. Health issues including drug use and near blindness caused by a degenerative condition led to a decline in his work, and he died of kidney failure in 1989, but Shaw’s recorded legacy has reinforced his brilliance as an improviser whose unusually wide intervals and polytonality marked his playing.