ACCLAIMED MUSICAL PRODIGY GRACE KELLY RELEASES MAN WITH THE HAT ON JANUARY 25

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Grace Kelly, Jazz, Phill Woods, Saxophone

FEATURING AND PAYING TRIBUTE TO LEGEND, PHIL WOODS

Grace Kelly and Phil Woods - Man with The Hat

With more than a half-century of experience in the jazz world, it would be safe to consider Phil Woods not only one of the music’s living legends but a true aficionado of his fellow instrumentalists. So it speaks volumes that the first time he shared the stage with a then-14-year-old Grace Kelly, he was moved to remove his iconic leather cap and place it on her head – the first time he’d ever made such a gesture to a fellow alto saxophonist.

“I’d never dreamed that I would have this relationship with him or that I’d even meet him,” says Kelly, reminiscing about that experience. “I look at this hat that he’s worn on his album covers for the last fifty years and it’s really well worn, and now he has a brand new one. It’s really a special memory.”

Four years later, the 18-year saxophone prodigy returns the favor with a new CD featuring and in tribute to Woods, aptly titled Man With the Hat. A fresh take on the bebop legacy that Woods has espoused for his entire career, the album arrives just in time to inaugurate the alto great’s 80th birthday year and consists of seven standards and originals penned by both Kelly and Woods and performed by an all-star ensemble.

Saxophonist James Moody dies of pancreatic cancer

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African American, James Moody, Jazz, Saxophone

James Moody

SAN DIEGO – Jazz saxophonist James Moody is best known for his 1949 “Moody’s Mood for Love,” but when he recorded the hit that eventually was elected into the Grammy Awards’ Hall of Fame, he said, he was just “trying to find the right notes.”

“People later said to me: ‘You must have been very inspired when you recorded that.’ And I said: ‘Yeah I was inspired to find the right notes!'” Moody told the San Diego Union-Tribune in February.

The song later was recorded by Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, Amy Winehouse and others. Longtime fan and confidante Bill Cosby called it a “national anthem.”

Moody, who recorded more than 50 solo albums as well as songs with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and B.B. King, died Thursday at San Diego Hospice after a 10-month battle with pancreatic cancer, his wife said. He was 85.

“James Moody had a sound, an imagination and heart as big as the moon. He was the quintessential saxophone player, and his ‘Moody’s Mood for Love’ will forever be remembered in jazz history side by side with Coleman Hawkins’ classic ‘Body and Soul,'” friend and collaborator Quincy Jones said in a statement Thursday. “Today we’ve lost not only one of the best sax players to ever finger the instrument, but a true national treasure.”

His last album, “Moody 4B,” was recorded in 2008 and released in 2010, receiving a Grammy nomination earlier this month for best jazz instrumental album.