The magic of Moody

At age 80, James Moody has played saxophone for 64 years, but he’d like to think his best playing is still ahead of him.

“My goal in life is to play better tomorrow than I did today,” he said in a phone interview from his home in San Diego. “As soon as you stop learning, you’re through.”

Sage advice from a performer who was on his way to the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival – an annual event that’s as much about workshops, clinics and conversations between students and pros as it is evening concerts in the University of Idaho’s ASUI Kibbie Dome.

He performs at tonight’s concert, which is billed as “A Special Tribute to James Moody.”

“I wish I would have had the opportunity to learn like the students have today,” he said.

Moody, born March 26, 1925, received a saxophone from his uncle when he was 16. Even before he first picked up the instrument, he was at a disadvantage: He was born hard of hearing, a condition that has continued to worsen. But he doesn’t know what, if any, effect that has had on his playing.

“If you’re hard of hearing and you don’t hear something, do you know that you don’t hear it?” he said.

His first bit of training came two years later, when he was in the Air Force, stationed in North Carolina. His base was putting together a “Negro band,” and the black soldiers were told to send home for their horns if they had them.

Members of the white band taught him and the rest of the band how to play. Eventually, Moody said, his band became hipper than the white band.

The bands weren’t the only segregated part of the service. Moody said even the German prisoners of war were allowed to eat at restaurants that the black soldiers weren’t allowed to enter.

“A lot of people think that they’re better than someone else because they’re another color,” he said. “But it’s a shame when you find out that you’re not.”

When he got out of the service, Moody jumped into professional playing and landed in Dizzy Gillespie’s band in 1946. Through the years he worked frequently with the jazz giant, who later would stand up as the best man in Moody’s wedding in 1989.

Established as one of the great saxophone players of his time, Moody played off-and-on with Lionel Hampton’s Golden Men of Jazz, a group of greats the late festival namesake put together sporadically through the years.

Moody doesn’t remember dates too well; when he picked up the flute, for instance, he can’t remember. But he can easily recall Hampton’s quirks, such as calling everyone “Gates” – Hamp’s own nickname – because he didn’t remember names.

“Most of all, it was nice listening to him,” Moody said. “He was a wonderful musician.”

Asked if he thought it is easier to make a living as a musician today than when he entered the business, Moody replied that he didn’t know of any profession that doesn’t take hard work. If a student wants to be a musician, he said, there shouldn’t be any question what profession to choose.

“If you want to do something and it’s in your heart to do it, you’ll make a living doing it,” he said. “In order to play music, that’s what you have to want to do. You won’t worry about making a living, because you will.”

This year’s Hampton Jazz Festival closes Saturday night with an Avista Giants of Jazz concert featuring the Lionel Hampton New York Big Band with guest vocalist Jon Hendricks.

For a full list of festival performers, visit www.jazz.uidaho.edu.