off: Allen Woody (Gov't Mule)

[Joseph Brooks]

With great sadness...

-=-=-

By JOHN SWENSON
Jazze.com Senior Editor NEW YORK-Allen Woody died in a Long Island hotel
room last Saturday, a damn lousy place to check out. He was a great bassist
who played with dynamism and rhythmic elasticity, as good a rock player
texture-wise as anyone on the genre's history and a keen improvisor inspired
by Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. He gave his sidekick,
the virtuoso guitarist Warren Haynes, everything he could handle from a
creative standpoint and everything he needed from the pivot point in the
trio he and Haynes formed with drummer Matt Abts, Govt Mule. Woody and
Haynes had it all - tremendous power from both sides of the plate and a
touch as sure and delicate as a Luis Aparicio to Nellie Fox double play.
Woody spent most of his career in the shadow of poseurs who couldn't bring
the hammer down but always looked good in the video. He didn't care because
the payoff was in the creative interplay, first with the Allman Brothers,
then with Govt Mule. Though his albums are filed under rock in the record
stores, he was also a great blues and jazz player, exploring modal
improvisational realms and playing with Parkeresque dexterity. The band's
fascination with jazz is reflected in its compositions "Kind of Bird,"
"Trane," "Dolphineus," "Thelonius Beck" and an epic cover of "Afro Blue."
Parker himself would have been 80 today and wouldn't that have been
something? Talk about great minds that could have made a difference over
time. But even in death Parker looms over the musical landscape of the last
50 years, not just in the obvious ways, either. For example, his "Now's the
Time" groove became the blueprint for the proto-rock & roll hit "The
Hucklebuck," and John McLaughlin coined a fusion highlight by transposing
Parker solos to electric guitar with the Mahavishnu Orchestra. They flocked
to Marcus Garvey park Saturday and Tompkins Square park Sunday to pay
tribute to Parker, and his memory was suitably invoked by a
near-contemporary of Bird's, saxophonist James Moody, a venerable jazz
player who did make it to Y2K. And while Moody has his own bag, he knows how
to bring the voodoo down, closing out the memorial with Jon Faddis playing
Dizzy Gillespie to his Bird on a phenomenal "Night in Tunisia." Columbia
radio station WKCR is concluding its annual 3-day birthday broadcast
memorializing Lester Young and Parker tonight at 9:30. During a section
called "Bird South of the Border" aired earlier today a tape of Symphony Sid
interviewing Parker about his work with Machito was played. Sid suggested
that Bird was putting a more commercial spin on bop, and Bird replied, "Bop
is just a term. It's all music."
Parker knew better than anyone that musical creativity is about transcending
categories, not building them. It's a message that Woody, and many other
great musicians, have taken to heart. We're all the better for it, if we
only take the time to really listen.
JB