80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note, March 26, 2005

James Moody's old bandleader Dizzy Gillespie couldn't be there that night at the Blue Note, but he was there anyway. The traces he left in the life and music of Moody (1925-2010) were omnipresent. Think of the repertoire - pieces like 'Bebop', 'Birks' Works' and 'Cherokee' - and a preference for real Jesus tempos, such as later generations played and still play less and less. And then there was the shared past that went back far into the forties, when everything revolved around bebop - real, stylistic bebop - and the urge to keep the audience on their toes with jokes if necessary. They both came up with alternative lyrics. Moody once sang at the Bimhuis (at the top of his voice) 'You are too beautiful for one man alone...' and (then mischievously) 'so next time I'll bring my buddy'. There is also a difference: Dizzy's chops deserted him in his last decades. The result of old age but also his eventually cumbersome playing style, with those puffed-up cheeks. That was not the case with Moody. He was still in top form on this album, with live recordings from New York, 2005. He celebrated his 80th birthday on March 26 and recently, now that he would have turned 100, this was released. With tenor saxophonists, we traditionally make a distinction between light but flexible tenor players and the heavy tenors who were not so fluent. But Moody has a fat sound and an impressive technique. He also defends himself bravely and bebop-like on the flute. His quartet was joined by a few star soloists who had blown in. It was very cozy, even though the result was less than the sum of the parts. But an atmosphere of healthy competition arose. After trumpeter Randy Brecker ends his solo high in the stratosphere, Jon Faddis starts where Brecker left off, and goes even higher. When Roberta Gambarini starts scatting, Moody does the same, and certainly not less. Moody sings the complete 'Moody's Mood for Love' solo, or his solo on alto, from 1949, set to text. Including - with pinched falsetto - the female part. This is how a jolly birthday party came about, especially for those who were there. But the listener at home also hears a somewhat underestimated tenorist who brought full jazz clubs to ecstasy for about sixty years; entirely on his own, after all without fat record contracts and media hype.