Phil Woods and David Sanborn - Willow Weep For Me - Night Music video

Alto saxophonist Phil Woods, wearing the cap, is the guest on this Night Music video and is playing with altoist David Sanborn, the host of the program. Phil Woods is one of the most brilliant of Charlie Parker's musical descendents. Starting with his love for Parker's and Johnny Hodges' alto styles, he found his own saxophone voice decades ago. He came up in the early 1950's.David Sanborn is much younger and started to be heard on records in the 1970's, starting with more of a poppish soul and blues style. He studied with George Coleman and by the time this was recorded had become quite an estimable jazz man.There's defintely some old master/young upstart tension happening here. Sanborn plays first and ends his solo with some very high altissimo notes. Woods starts his solo right in Sanborn's ending range and then exagerates it a bit. Maybe he was expressing a bit of irritation at what he thought of as showboating? This arrangement of "Willow Weep For Me" uses the accompaniment that Miles Davis invented for his song "All Blues" during the A sections of the tune. (The form here is AABA, with the initial 8 bar A section repeated twice, an 8 bar bridge B section for contrast and a return to the A melody to end the cycle.)Woods started to use this arrangement idea during the "Willow Weep For Me" performance that was recorded for his great "Musique Du Bois" album in the mid 70's, which is the audio track I'm pointing to at the top. Woods loves to interpolate small snatches of other songs during his solos. Towards the end where he and Sanborn solo together he quotes Richard Rodgers' "It Might As Well Be Spring". Sanborn follows that by quoting the "I Feel Pretty' melody from West Side Story for a second and Woods instantly catches that and plays it also in unison with Sanborn. Woods is an extremely inventive, witty and competetive player.