Cherry Pie with Bird
by Phil Woods †
Monk was a great leader, because you knew you were cool when he started dancing around the band. There was no verbal communication whatsoever. It was very Afro-American in the purest African sense. It was by rote, and you had to really learn the music. I learned at the feet of the “Afro-Experience,” because I used to hang out at the black club in Springfield.
I was raised by black musicians. My first tour was with the Birdland All-Stars. I sat beyond Lester Young and Bud Powell, who didn’t speak to each other for seven weeks. Prez rolled joints and Bud just stared out the window. There I was with all these cats who were on the bus, and don’t you dare sit in the wrong seat or Freddie Green will pull your leg out of your ass.
I was 24 years old when Quincy Jones discovered me and I played on a world tour sponsored by the State Department with Dizzy Gillespie. Imagine being in the middle of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, playing “Groovin’ High.” It doesn’t get any better than that. It was a fairytale existence.
One jazz journalist kept saying, “Woods is always telling the same story about eating a piece of cherry pie with Charlie Parker.” I felt like asking him, “If you had a drink with Shakespeare, wouldn’t you want to tell your friends about it?” It’s not me that’s important, it’s that these guys are my friends, my com-patriots, my teachers, my mentors. All of those cats: part of them belong to me ’cause I played with them, I got high with them. So yeah....
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