Phil Woods - Part 4 - The Smithsonian Interview

 © Copyright ® Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

When alto master Phil Woods declares that he has "played with them all," it is a statement of justified pride.

He is approaching his 80th birthday in November of this year, and has spent more than 60 years as a working musician, achieving world-wide recognition as one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all time. The list of his idols, influences, mentors and colleagues is a "Who's Who" of jazz legends: Lenny Tristano, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Charlie Parker, Benny Carter, Quincy Jones, Oliver Nelson, Gene Quill, Clark Terry, Al Cohn and Zoot Sims, to name only a few.

From his upbringing in Springfield, Massachusetts to his roots in the Delaware Water Gap region of Pennsylvania and all of his travels in between, the story of Phil Woods is a remarkable account of high personal achievement in performance, composition, recording and jazz education.

In 2007, Phil was awarded the coveted Jazz Master designation by the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest honor that our nation bestows on its jazz musicians. The Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program was established in 1992 by the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and has documented to date the stories and experiences of more than 100 historically renowned jazz figures.

The following interview of Phil Woods was conducted on June 22-23, 2010 by Marty Nau and Ken Kimery of the Smithsonian Oral History Program (www.smithsonian.org). Phil passed away on September 29, 2015.

This is the fourth of a multi-part feature.

"So, anyway, the business was getting weird. Quincy left, and everybody was moving to the West Coast because that was where the gigs were. The record business had changed completely. It was now, you know, the three cretins with an EWI, and a lot of guitars. It changed and the gigs were falling apart. I remember, I said to Chan, "Let's go to Europe; let's go back," because we spent that year in '59 and '60 in Europe and we loved being based in Paris. I said, "I can't make the studio scene anymore. I want to play jazz" So, we packed up our matching luggage and our 24 cardboard cartons and moved to Europe.”

I had a two-week gig at Ronnie Scott's club in London, and then I had a couple of German workshops. In those days, the radio orchestras would bring in famous players from all the different countries and put together a special project, and I had a couple of those. We flew to England and did Ronnie Scott's and then we planned to head to Amsterdam because we didn't think we could afford Paris. In fact, I bought a Fiat 1500 for delivery in Amsterdam. But when I was working at Ronnie Scott's, a guy by the name of Jean Louis Ginibre, who was the editor of Jazz magazine in Paris, came to London. He had heard I was in London, knew who I was, and said, "You know, you've got to come to Paris." And I said, "Well, we're thinking of..." and he said, "Come to Paris. My wife's going to start booking" That was Simone Ginibre, who became George Wein's right-hand lady, girl Friday-Saturday-Sunday-and-Monday. I was her first client.

So, we went to Paris and drove around the Arch of Triumph with Jean Louis and Simone Ginibre. Simone's maiden name was Simone Chevalier and she used to sing with Bud Powell at the Blue Note in Paris. For seven years, she sang with Bud Powell and she did the same set for seven years. She'd have to write it out every night for Bud because he couldn't remember what she was going to sing. [Both laugh] She was great. When they had kids, she missed the business so she started booking. Jean Louis came and got me and Chan and we went to Paris. He put a band together for me: Daniel Humaire on drums, Henri Texier on bass and George Gruntz on piano. It became the European Rhythm Machine.

[MN]: Later, George Gruntz was replaced by Gordon Beck.

[PW1:... and Ron Mathewson replaced Tex. But we always had Daniel on drums. Man, you know, from playing jingles and all that stuff, all of a sudden I'm playing every major festival in Europe because of Jean Louis' influence and Simone booking us. Right off the bat we started recording for Pathe, the French label. We did a thing called Alive and Well. It was received very well and, man, I was off and running; five years of headlining and stuff. I've always been very grateful to the European culture that remembered me from '59 and knew my work. They keep track, and it isn't like you're passe because you're over 30, you know what I mean? They don't rip a building down because it's old; they don't make a parking lot out of it.

Europeans are maybe not hipper than Americans but they're certainly more aware of the culture. I don't think the average Frenchman wants his daughter to marry a tenor man or an alto player or a trumpet player. But they realize the importance of these people within the culture; that the culture needs an alto player and a tenor player and a trumpet player, you know? It's not weird, because jazz is loved in Europe as an original American art form. To this day, I make more money in Europe than I do in America. At this point in 2010, there are not a lot of gigs or tours in America. I still do well because I am who I am and I have a name so I get a gig. It's not like it used to be but Europe is still pretty good. They still pay money and give you respect; they give you a room, a suite, and fly you first class and feed you well.

[MN]: I heard you say in an interview one time that when you went to Europe, you felt like you were let out of a cage.

[PW]: Yes, well, at that point after being in the studios for the sixties and all that, all of a sudden I'm playing with my own jazz quartet. I had the first electric sax, I had the baritone, I was using a ring modulator at one point. Gordon was writing a lot of suites and stuff with the band, and Daniel was an exciting drummer. We felt we were taking it up a notch.

[MN]: If you asked me, the music you played over there you hadn't really played before or since. In other words, you really got into an avant-garde thing. A lot of people who don't know Phil Woods as well as I do are surprised by those years, I think.

[PW]: Yeah, well, I was surprised too. [Both laugh]

[MN]: But they were great.

[PW]: Yes. It was a chance to experiment and I got it out of my system.  I took it as far as I could at that level, and then I left Europe. For some odd reason, I moved to L.A. I always wanted to have a house with a pool. I'll never want that again! You spend all day worrying about the pH factor, you know? [laughs]

[MN]: I was at a clinic of yours and you started the clinic by saying, "If you don't learn anything today, don't get a house with a pool."

[PW]: Don't get a house with a pool ... But when I went to L.A., I started a real avant-garde band. That's when I had the ring modulator with Pete Robinson and we were really out, really out.

[MN]: I have that record.

[PW]: Very out, very out. But that's when I found out that I was not an L.A. guy. I remember Donte's, the famous jazz club in the valley, wanted me. They heard I was in town. So, I gave them a pretty stiff price. I mean, I was used to five years in Europe; I wasn't going to work for scale. I remember the club owner saying, "Stay here long enough, and we'll get you for scale," and I said, "I'm out of here" By that point, my marriage to Chan was kind of on the rocks, and I had met and fallen in love with Jill Goodwin, my present wife, who happens to be the sister of my drummer. Bill Goodwin.

[MN]: Who, I think, is one of the great drummers.

[PW]: Yes, he is. He plays a song.

[MN]: I think he's one of the great drummers.

[PW]: Yes, I think you're right. I think Steve Gilmore is one of the great bass players. We've been together 35 years, which is another whole story. So, I said, "I've got to get out of here," and Jill said, "Well, I want to get out of here, too." She was coming off a divorce. We were both single and looking to go to the East Coast. I was actually heading back to Europe since my return to America hadn't worked out. The year I was in LA. I made three thousand dollars in that year. I used to make more than that in a night in Europe with my own band. So I was going back to France, I thought.

We drove to New York; I gave Jill a ride. She went and stayed with Chuck Israels who was a good friend of hers, and I stayed with Jerry Dodgion. He got a call from Michel Legrand's manager who said, "Jerry, I got Eddie Daniels for the first week, Michel is doing an album in the second week and we need a good player" Jerry said, "Well I'm working but Phil Woods is here. You want to talk to him?" He said, "Phil? Oh, yeah. Sure." So I got the gig to play with Michel Legrand the second week. We did an album called Live at Jimmy's; I played "You Must Believe In Spring." At that time, Jill had hepatitis, I didn't know when my divorce was going to happen, and I didn't know where I was going to live. But the record led to forming a company called Gryphon Productions, which was Michel Legrand, Nat Shapiro and Norman Schwartz. We did an album - Michel Legrand wrote a thing called Images for me - and that won a Grammy.

As irony would have it, I was presented with the award by Benny Goodman, who hated me when I went on his band in Russia in 1962. In fact, somebody once asked Zoot, "What's it like to tour Russia with Benny Goodman?" Zoot said, "Any tour with Benny Goodman is like being in Russia" [Both laugh] As Benny handed me the Grammy, he said, "I wondered what happened to you, kid!" And I said, "Sure you did." [Both laugh]

[MN]: Now, real quick though, back to that solo you played, "You Must Believe In Spring"...

[PW]: People ask me what's my favorite solo and I say the most important solo to me was "You Must Believe In Spring" because I was on the edge of the precipice. I had five fantastic years in Europe but now my marriage was falling apart, I had a couple of kids (I was very upset about that), I had a new woman who I loved, I didn't know where I was going or what I was going to do. But from that one gig with Michel Legrand ... I mean, there I was heading back to France and my career was saved by a Frenchman. The irony of it all; I've always lived with that. I said, "Man, it's weird, but somebody up there loves me, somebody is looking out for me" because it all worked out really well. Chan and I came to terms, the family is okay behind the divorce, and Jill and I are having a wonderful 35 years together.

I did a record for Joe Fields called Musique Dubois, with Richard Davis and Allen Dawson and Jackie Byard. It was a good record, but it didn't—. I mean, after having my own band for five years, I was hearing something else. I ran across Bill Goodwin at the Blue Note - we were staying at his house in the Poconos here; that's how I happened to end up in the Poconos — and I said, "We've got to get a band." We were jamming a little bit in the Poconos, Gilmore, Goodwin and I, and Mike Melillo, who was the first piano player. That became the first quartet and here we are 33 years later. From that "let out of a cage" feeling of being in Europe with a sort of an avant-garde thing, I realized that my strength is in playing songs. That's really what I love to do. I can go this way and that way and all that, but the way I really like to go is I want to write more tunes.

But, I had a certain thing I heard. I wanted a band that was really a band, you know? The European Rhythm Machine was full-out; all the stops were out. But I wanted to be able to go other ways, too. I wanted to break out the clarinet again and do some exotic stuff, because I loved the way Goodman played the ballads. It reminded me of the Ellington kind of sound. I liked playing obscure ballads, adding another horn. I had Harry Leahey on guitar in the beginning and that was good. We did Live At The Showboat and it won a Grammy also. Both albums, Images and Showboat, which were recorded back to back on RCA, won Grammys and were taken off the market within a year. You wouldn't do that to any other music; you wouldn't do it to Polish music, to Italian music, to French music. But the jazz market didn't compete with what Bill Haley and the Comets were selling. I mean, they say your records don't sell, and then you win a Grammy for them, and they put the little silver thing on the front of it that says "Grammy Winner" Then, they just take them off the market. You can buy that Showboat record now but you'll pay $60 for it as an import from Japan.

[MN]: Exactly. I've scrolled down eBay, believe me.

[PW]; Yes, I know, I know. I had to buy it myself. I said, "That's more than I made!" [Both laugh]

[MN]: Now, it's interesting that you mention Musique Dubois because you see that record a lot differently than most of your listeners do.

[PW]: No, no. I don't say it's a bad record. I'm just hearing something else.

[MN]: Okay.

[PW]:I was looking for quicker musicians in the studio. I was looking for quicker results. It came off okay but it took a lot of work to get the guys to get it off the paper because it was all new music. They would play great but it was still a jam session as far as I was concerned.

[MN]: Well, I get you.

[PW]:I mean, it wasn't what I was hearing.

[MN]: Your playing is very driven on that as well as on Live at Jimmy's.

[PW]: Yeah, yeah ... whatever. I need a break. [Recording stopped, then resumes] What was the first one I did? I was a good friend of Phil Ramone's and he got me the gig with Billy Joel, "Just The Way You Are," and with Phoebe Snow. I did Phoebe Snow and Billy Joel in the same session. It was just me and Phil in the studio. He had the changes on the back of a match-book cover. The Billy Joel thing is like a pop song, and Phoebe Snow was okay. He also got me an Aretha Franklin gig ... [sings da da da da da]

[MN]: "Somewhere."

[PW]: "Somewhere," which really came out nice, I think.

[MN]: It was beautiful.

[PW]: I love that record. But the Billy Joel, really, all of a sudden it's the biggest selling record in history, and, wow, I've heard my solo all over the world. In fact, my solo is in the piano music. I made a grand total of $300. 

[Both laugh] Billy got a lot more than that. In fact, I ran across a lawyer from California who asked, "Did Billy Joel take care of you?" I said, "What do you mean? No, I didn't get a cufflink, a chocolate, nothing." He said, "That's strange because Billy was going to send you a check." And then it came out a little later on, right after this guy said it, that Billy Joel's manager ripped him off, stole all his bread. I mean, he really took a hit from the manager. Billy Joel's a pretty good guy, and I've got a feeling that Billy said, "Send Phil a check because he's an important part of the record," and the manager said, "Oh, sure," and, you know, stuck it in his own pocket.

But I was in the middle of Warsaw and I heard it in a Polish hotel, a guy was playing my solo. Every time I'd hear it I'd go up and say, "Nice job on my solo," and they'd say, "Oh my god, it's him!" [Both laugh] But the best one though is... I'm working this gig somewhere and here comes a young saxophone player, 17, 18, whatever. He's got his horn and he comes backstage. He said, "Can I talk to you?" I said, "Sure, young man." He said, "Are you the guy on that Billy Joel record?" I said, "Yes, I am." He said, "Have you done anything on your own?" [chuckles] I said, "A couple things," you know, Dizzy, Quincy, Sass.

I just saw Donald Fagen. We were both given the ASCAP Wall of Fame Award. I'm on the Steely Dan Wall of Fame. I'm on "Dr. Woo," which was supposed to have been written as a reflection of a saxophone player's career, I don't really know. I flew out to L.A.; they put me in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I immediately invited all the alto players, including Joe Roccissano and Joe Lopes, my friends from Springfield, and everybody else. I had oysters and lobster and champagne. I ran the biggest rock 'n' roll-style party of anybody that Steely Dan - and Steely Dan had a lot of guest soloists - but I beat them all by running up the biggest tab ever. When I went to the studio, it was just the engineer and me; I never met Donald Fagan or Walter Becker, the leaders. I'm in and out in about 20 minutes. Let me preface this by saying, it was coming up around Thanksgiving, and I said, "Man, this is like stealing." I mean, what a piece of cake, you know? I'd been partying for three days and worked for 20 minutes and I made a lot more than $300 and I'm going home.

So I get the red-eye out of LAX, and I'm on the plane ready to go, and a dreaded voice comes up from the cabin: "Ladies and Gentlemen, it seems like the fog is going to keep us here until morning ..." It's midnight, and we're not going to leave until daylight, and I said, "Oh my god." I'd been partying so hard. And then he said,"... but the bar's going to be open" and that free booze, I couldn't possibly squeeze it down. I'd already partied my ass off for a week. And I'm sitting next to this big black lady who proceeded to get totally smashed. I'm sitting in this plane for six hours before we could take off and she's rattling in my ear. I missed my connection in Chicago; I missed Thanksgiving; I was, like, two days late, and I said, "Easy bread, huh?" [Both laugh]

[MN]: Spoke too soon.

[PW]: Never count your royalties until the chickens come home, baby. Some easy bread! But the Billy Joel thing -I got more attention, but I never felt like using it in my publicity. The people that had been following my career, and I go way back before Billy Joel, I mean, the people that were buying Quill and Phil and my early Prestige stuff... I could never say, "Phil Woods - Billy Joel's alto player" I could've played "Just the Way You Are," I probably would have brought more people in, but I could never sell out. I mean, I got that far without selling out. It really seemed pretty silly too, so I never used it. It makes a great story, but as a career thing, no. It never interested me.

What I was really sorry about is... Norman Schwartz was my manager at the time and he didn't know who Billy Joel was. But around that period people like Mike Brecker, Randy Brecker, the young soloists - if they did a date with a pop star, and there was a lot of that because pop was happening. They were using jazz stars and I guess I was one of them. But the prescribed way of dealing with a thing like that would be to ask for a point. If they took a tune off the LP and it went single, you'd get a point. You don't get anything on the LP but if one of the tunes is a hit, you'd get a point. "Just The Way You Are" sold like three billion records. That's a lot of points, man! I'm sorry we didn't ask for a point, because I could have saved a lot of time, and three billion pennies is a significant amount of bread.

[MN]: That's a lot of pennies.

[PW]: Three billion pennies adds up.

[MN]: That's a pile of copper.

[PW]: But, if I'd done that, the money would have been spent and I wouldn't have this wonderful story to tell, [laughs] And it's a good story, you know? But, I would only do a pop thing if I felt I could contribute something. The Billy Joel thing was a Tin Pan Alley song; the "Dr. Woo" thing, I loved that band, I still do; and the Aretha thing, and Phoebe, I mean, it was all music to me. I'm a professional musician. I never consider myself above it all - great artist, I don't stoop to - you know. I like the challenge of playing, of being able to contribute, and I still do that. There's a Japanese singer who can barely sing but they gave me a whole lot of money to play on his album, and the tunes were great. He couldn't sing very well but the arrangements and everything were good. I did them and they were the biggest selling thing in Japan.

[MN]: Any opportunities that you turned down in the seventies that we don't know about, that...

[PW]: Earth Wind and Fire. I wish I had done that thing with Earth Wind and Fire because that's one of my favorite bands, I didn't know who they were and my idiot manager said, "They don't have enough money." But I think I would have gladly—. I mean $300 for Billy Joel, that's not a lot of money either, man. Earth Wind and Fire would probably have paid twice that. It was a mistake; I was misguided by my management. So, I never had a manager again.

[MN]: Was the Paul Simon thing after Billy Joel?

[PW]: The Paul Simon thing was around the same period. Phil Ramone called me and said, "I need you to play one minute of bebop, fast." I said "What key?" He said, "B flat." I said, "Okay." [Both laugh] If it's a rock 'n' roll thing it could have been in B, and he said, "I need some 'I Got Rhythm,' fast," I said "B flat?" He said, "Yeah." If he'd have said B natural, I would have said, "Call [David] Sanborn," [chuckles] who's a great player, by the way, and a dear friend. But yeah, they were all recording, and I'm sitting in the studio, and he said, "All right... Woods!" They're all packing up and I went in there [makes some alien-sounding, alto-impressionistic sounds, very fast] and I'm gone. I made five, six hundred bucks. It was cool.

[MN]: And for the people who might not have heard that solo, it didn't quite sound like what you just scatted. It's a pretty unbelievable solo, I recommend it...

[PW]: I played every lick known to man [both laugh] I played all my licks. In fact, I gave my complete B flat reprise.

[MN]: Who needs all 12 keys?

[PW]: Who needs all 12 keys - greatly overrated! [MN laughs] Those sharp keys, anyway. I like being a working musician, you know? And I've never had a hit record. I think that was the downfall of Cannonball. The European Rhythm Machine opened for Cannonball's first tour of Europe. He was doing "Mercy, Mercy" and all that stuff, you know, the stuff that was the hit in the States. He was doing his Las Vegas act and European audiences couldn't use it. I saw him get booed. He learned a lot and he never did that again. But he wasn't aware of the European audiences. The European audiences know a lot more, and they don't want to hear your pop stuff. We opened and we'd get a great reception and his band, not so much. So, I think having a hit record is a kiss of death in this business, because that's what people are going to want to hear.

[MN]: Right.

[PW]: Or, if you play a great solo. I mean, if I'd gone out on the road with Billy Joel, I probably would have made a lot of money but they would have wanted me to play that exact same solo, [chuckles] A friend of mine did an arrangement on that solo and we play it when I do a clinic.

[MN]: Eric Doney.

[PW]: Eric Doney did it.

[MN]:  That's a wonderful arrangement.

[PW]:  It's a great little thing, and it goes into one of his things. But that's years later that I can do it. I never would have thought of it myself.

[MN]: It's a great kind of looking back.

[PW]: Yeah, it's fun now.

[MN]: Well, I say unless you have any more, we could break for today.  What do you think?

[PW]: I wouldn't mind.

[MN]: Unless you've got some more steam and want to keep going.

[PW]: No, I think that's a good day's work, don't you think?" 

To be continued in Part 5.