Jazz for aficionados
That’s very funny. Davis sounds fabulous on Voyage. Love the sound. Was surprised he was using that Selmer metal mouthpiece on the clip with Woods. Very unwieldy style of mouthpiece; doesn’t allow a lot of agility in the playing, but unique sound some players like (sometimes). https://youtu.be/FoxBWLwxcdk |
Straight up, McPherson on tone , Jesse on melody and swing . A tie . I saw Davis had a different mouthpiece but I thought it was the double lip thing NO players use . Never seen either in real life . Lousy sounding clip on Voyage for Davis , seems to be only one extant .Woods is great but to use a classical analogy , to me he's Heifetz, Davis is Menuhin. But that IS ONLY me . |
About twenty years or so before he passed Phil Woods, suffering from emphisyma, switched to Yamaha altos, a much freer blowing horn than the Selmer he had played all his career. As always, there are no free rides. The Yamaha is less resistant and freer blowing, but doesn’t have the color in the tone that the Selmer has; sounds a little bleached out like in the Vayage clip. Classic, pre-Yamaha Phil Woods tone, 1974: https://youtu.be/t0DPCG_enHc Good analogy. To use another Classical analogy: I sometimes get tired of Woods’ effortlessness in his ideas and total command; I want to hear a little struggle. To me it’s like Richard Strauss operas. One asks oneself “how much dessert can one have?”. One impossibly gorgeous and perfect melody after another and it becomes too much. |
