Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Even in Sickness
Jazz saxophonist James Moody died at the San Diego Hospice on the afternoon of December 9, a week and a day after receiving his fourth Grammy nomination. He was 85 and had battled pancreatic cancer for ten months. Moody 4B would prove to be his final album. Recorded in 2008, it was released this year and was nominated in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category.
Charles McPherson received a message from Moody in the weeks prior to his death. “A friend of his called to ask about a saxophone repairman in town, and who did I go to, and who would I recommend.” Best known perhaps for his work with Charles Mingus, McPherson is a Detroit-raised modern jazz saxist who relocated to San Diego in 1978. He and Moody were friends. He says the phone message confused him at first. Why hadn’t Moody called?
“With hindsight, now I know that he couldn’t call me himself. He was too weak. But he was still concerned about mundane things like the saxophone and it being fixed, and for what? He still wanted to play?” The answer was yes. “Even in sickness, the flame was still alive for him.” McPherson says he later asked Moody’s wife Linda about the odd request. “She was saying that what was wrong...he was too weak to really finger well. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that, and [Moody] was thinking it was something wrong with the horn.”
Moody may have lived out his final years in San Diego more or less under the radar, but out of town, it was a different story. In 1998 the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master, and “Moody’s Mood for Love,” covered by the likes of Van Morrison and Aretha Franklin and Amy Winehouse and many more, landed in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. Moody was also recognized by the International Jazz Hall of Fame.
“He was in on the very beginnings of the bebop era,” says McPherson of Moody’s 64-year career. “He was in one of Dizzy Gillespie’s big bands, which was probably the first bebop big band.”
James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. Hard of hearing, he started on alto sax as a teenager and then later switched up to tenor, soprano and, during the 1950s, flute.
“Through the years,” says McPherson, “he stayed consistently marvelous on the saxophone.”
Moody is survived by his wife of 22 years, his children, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Even in Sickness
Even in Sickness
Jazz saxophonist James Moody died at the San Diego Hospice on the afternoon of December 9, a week and a day after receiving his fourth Grammy nomination. He was 85 and had battled pancreatic cancer for ten months. Moody 4B would prove to be his final album. Recorded in 2008, it was released this year and was nominated in the Best Jazz Instrumental Album category.
Charles McPherson received a message from Moody in the weeks prior to his death. “A friend of his called to ask about a saxophone repairman in town, and who did I go to, and who would I recommend.” Best known perhaps for his work with Charles Mingus, McPherson is a Detroit-raised modern jazz saxist who relocated to San Diego in 1978. He and Moody were friends. He says the phone message confused him at first. Why hadn’t Moody called?
“With hindsight, now I know that he couldn’t call me himself. He was too weak. But he was still concerned about mundane things like the saxophone and it being fixed, and for what? He still wanted to play?” The answer was yes. “Even in sickness, the flame was still alive for him.” McPherson says he later asked Moody’s wife Linda about the odd request. “She was saying that what was wrong...he was too weak to really finger well. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that, and [Moody] was thinking it was something wrong with the horn.”
Moody may have lived out his final years in San Diego more or less under the radar, but out of town, it was a different story. In 1998 the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master, and “Moody’s Mood for Love,” covered by the likes of Van Morrison and Aretha Franklin and Amy Winehouse and many more, landed in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001. Moody was also recognized by the International Jazz Hall of Fame.
“He was in on the very beginnings of the bebop era,” says McPherson of Moody’s 64-year career. “He was in one of Dizzy Gillespie’s big bands, which was probably the first bebop big band.”
James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. Hard of hearing, he started on alto sax as a teenager and then later switched up to tenor, soprano and, during the 1950s, flute.
“Through the years,” says McPherson, “he stayed consistently marvelous on the saxophone.”
Moody is survived by his wife of 22 years, his children, grandchildren, and a great-grandchild.
Comments