James Moody

I am deeply saddened  to hear of the passing of James Moody, the incomparably, brightly toned and personally warm and affable saxophonist/flutist. I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with him for about ten minutes between sets at Birdland when it was on the Upper West Side in the late 1980's and early 1990's. I called him Mr. Moody and he corrected me: "I'm just Moody." It's not surprising that he was so close to Dizzy Gillespie: they were both such ebullient personalities with warm senses of humor:

Of course Moody is perhaps most famous for an improvisation on the chord progressions of the dreadful I'm in the Mood for Love, made even more famous and ending up in the standards category when Eddie Jefferson added lyrics to the Moody improvisation resulting in Moody's Mood for Love:

Now Moody and Dizzy are reunited for eternity. Rest in peace.