Collection: Woody Shaw

Woody Shaw grew up in Newark, studied classical trumpet from about the age of eleven and was working professionally by fourteen. He joined Eric Dolphy’s band in 1963, making his first recording appearance on Dolphy’s Iron Man, and after a stretch in Paris he replaced Carmell Jones in Horace Silver’s quintet, debuting on Blue Note with The Cape Verdean Blues. He wrote three of the six tunes on Larry Young’s Unity, including “The Moontrane”, and his own records from the 1970s, among them Song of Songs (Contemporary, 1973) and The Moontrane (Muse, 1975), built long, angular post-bop lines on modal ground. Columbia followed with Rosewood (1978), which Down Beat readers named Jazz Album of the Year, and Stepping Stones: Live at the Village Vanguard (1979). He also appeared on Dexter Gordon’s Homecoming (1976). He died in 1989 aged 44.