James Moody was born in
Savannah,
Georgia. Growing up in
New Jersey, he was attracted to the saxophone after hearing
George Holmes Tate,
Don Byas, and various saxophonists who played with
Count Basie, and later also took up the flute. He joined the US Army Air Corps in 1943 and played in the "negro band" on the segregated base.Following his discharge from the military in 1946 he played
be-bop with
Dizzy Gillespie for two years. Moody later played with Gillespie in 1964, where his colleagues in the Gillespie group, pianist
Kenny Barron and guitarist
Les Spann, would be musical collaborators in the coming decades.
In 1948 he recorded his first session for
Blue Note Records, the first in a long recording career playing both saxophone and flute. That same year he relocated to Europe, where he stayed for three years, saying he had been "scarred by racism" in the U.S. His European work, including the first recording of "Moody's Mood for Love" saw him add the
alto saxophone to his repertoire and helped to establish him as recording artist in his own right, and were part of the growth of European jazz. Then in 1952 he returned to the U.S. to a recording career with
Prestige Records and others, playing
flute and saxophone in bands that included musicians such as
Pee Wee Moore and others. In the 1960s he rejoined Dizzy Gillespie. He later worked also with
Mike Longo.
In a 1998 interview with Bob Bernotas, Moody stated that he believed
jazz has definite
spiritual resonance.
The James Moody Quartet (with pianist
Renee Rosnes, bassist
Todd Coolman, and drummer
Adam Nussbaum) was Moody's vehicle later is his career.. Moody played regularly with Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars and the Dizzy Gillespie Alumni All-Stars Big Band and also often collaborated with former Gillespie alumnus, the trumpeter-composer-conductor
Jon Faddis; Faddis and Moody worked in 2007 with the
WDR Big Band in
Cologne, Germany under the direction of
Michael Abene.
On November 3, 2009, Moody appeared live in an interview conducted in both
Italian and
English (Moody spoke Italian) with the jazz aficionado, Nick "The Nightfly", on
Radio Monte Carlo's late-night "Monte Carlo Nights" program. The chat featured an amiable Moody talking about his career.
Moody was married to Linda Moody; they resided in
San Diego. He was an active member of the
Bahá'í Faith. In 2005, the Moodys established the Moody Scholarship Fund at the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College-
SUNY; the first Moody Scholars, named in 2007, are saxophonist Andrew Gould and trumpeter Maxilmilien Darche. Moody was an NEA Jazz Master and often participated in educational programming and outreach, including with the International Association for Jazz Education, or IAJE.
PS Am primit acest autograf la cateva zile dupa ce sotia jazzmanului anunta ca sotul sau sufera de cancer pancreatic si ca a ales sa nu urmeze un tratament agresiv. Mr Moodie a murit in 9 decembrie 2010.