Larry Young – Unity (1965)

Joe Henderson and Elvin Jones appear alongside Woody and Larry Young on this album, in many ways a breakthrough album for Woody. He was only 20 years old at the time, and three of his original tunes are featured on the album – Zoltan, The Moontrane and Beyond All Limits. Although Woody’s playing is not as fluid as it would be in a few years time, and his time feel is sometimes not spot on (especially on the up tempo numbers), overall his contribution to the album is very impressive. He is definitely beginning to find his own voice on the trumpet, and has clearly been checking out his pentatonic scales, as well as ways of playing ‘outside’ the harmony. A similar approach can be heard in the organ playing of Larry Young – like Woody, he was from Newark, New Jersey, and the two of them had played together for several years. Woody has attributed much of his harmonic knowledge to Larry Young in an interview with the now defunct ‘Musician’ magazine.

The first track is a composition by Woody entitled Zoltan and features a march theme by the Hungarian composer Zoltan Kodaly which utilises the pentatonic scale. The second theme is also composed entirely out of pentatonic scales. Woody uses the pentatonic of the II over a I chord, creating a lydian sound. The other compositions by Woody are The Moontrane, a tribute to John Coltrane, and Beyond All Limits, an incredibly fast swing number. Both are difficult tunes to play with lots of complicated chord changes and reflect the ambition of the young trumpet player. Woody’s best solo on the album, however, comes on the Joe Henderson tune If. This is a blues in F (concert), and the medium tempo and familiar structure means that Woody is free to explore his new method of using pentatonic scales to play ‘outside’ the standard chord changes. Woody’s sound on this album is still very similar to Freddie Hubbard, but he has now moved into new harmonic realms unexplored by the older trumpet player.

Louis Hayes – Woody Shaw Quintet, Lausanne 1977

This live album also features Ronnie Matthews and Stafford James, pianist and bassist on Little Red’s Fantasy, as well as Rene McLean (son of Jackie McLean) on saxes and flute. Woody co-led a band with Louis Hayes for a part of 1977, but unfortunately the only recordings of this band are this live album and the studio album The Real Thing.

Two of Woody’s tunes open the album, In Case You Haven’t Heard and The Moontrane. Woody’s solo on The Moontrane is fantastic. The tempo is very fast and the harmony is complicated but Woody plays over it with ease, and with fantastic quaver articulation. My only criticism is that I think he plays too many choruses, by the end you can clearly hear that he is tired and running out of ideas. The next tune is Wayne Shorter’s Contemplation which is a feature for pianist Ronnie Matthews. The last two tunes are Jean-Marie by Matthews and Bilad As Sudan by McLean, and both tunes are strong throughout – McLean and Woody solo especially well on Bilad As Sudan.

The album does have its flaws, as any live album will have, but these are more than compensated for by the vast majority of playing which is inspired. Louis Hayes is a constantly driving force at the drums, propelling the soloists to explore new ideas. Unfortunately, Woody seems to have been recorded poorly and his sound is often quite distant and tinny (the rest of the band generally sound alright). However, this is only a small detraction from the overall high quality of this album.