Woody Shaw - At Onkel Pös Carnegie Hall, Hamburg 1979 (Live) '2019

Tracks list

Woody Shaw was born a decade or so after quintessential hard-bop trumpeters Lee
Morgan, Donald Byrd and Freddie Hubbard, Shaws professed role model. He came to
the party late but he came bearing gifts—a strong technique, an ability
to play inside and outside with equal conviction, and a lot of soul. These
qualities were to the fore on two sideman albums on which Shaws reputation was
established, Eric Dolphys Iron Man (Douglas, 1963), Shaws recorded debut, and
Larry Youngs Unity (Blue Note, 1965).

Between 1965 and 1972, Shaw went on to high-profile spells with Horace Silver,
Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Max Roach, Joe Henderson and Art Blakey. He achieved a
kind of stardom, but it was that of a musicians musician not a headliner. He was
dogged by ill-health, which held him back in career terms, and he compounded
this by spending extended periods away from New York performing in Europe, which
he found more congenial. He was already a marginalised figure when he recorded
his masterpiece, Rosewood (Columbia). Made with a twelve-piece band, the album
was voted Best Jazz Album of 1978 in Down Beat. Shaw passed in distressing
circumstances in 1989, aged 44.

In career terms, Shaw was an under-achiever. But he left behind a large body of
superb jazz, most of it on other musicians albums, which show how different
things might have been. He shone most brightly as a soloist and he never showed
tremendous inclination to compose (only one track on Rosewood is a Shaw
original), which is not necessarily a prerequisite of own-name stardom though it
helps.

High-calibre live recordings of Shaw continue to be unearthed and released. The
2CD set At Onkel Pos Carnegie Hall: Vol.1: Hamburg 1979 is one such. Shaw leads
a quintet featuring three holdovers from the Rosewood sessions—Carter
Jefferson, Onaje Allan Gumbs, Victor Lewis—and newbie Stafford James, who
replaced Rosewoods Clint Houston.

Tracklist:
 01. Woody Shaw - Some Other Blues (Live) (24:41)
 02. Woody Shaw - All the Things You Are (Live) (22:25)
 03. Woody Shaw - Announcement (Live) (01:16)
 04. Woody Shaw - Stepping Stone (Live) (12:09)
 05. Woody Shaw - In a Capricornian Way (Live) (14:47)
 06. Woody Shaw - It All Comes Back to You (Live) (18:59)

Related artists