Woodard, Rickey

Woodard, Rickey, American saxophonist; b. Nashville, Tenn., Aug. 5, 1950. His tenor style draws from both swing era and mainstream, modern jazz players such as Don Byas, Wardell Grey, and Gene Ammons, and his ballad approach displays traces of Dexter Gordon’s lyric consciousness. His alto tone is less distinctive and he has de-emphasized the horn in recent years. Raised in Nashville, he did not have much choice but to go into music, joining his five brothers and sisters in the family’s R&B band. As part of the children’s musical education, his father made them listen to Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lucky Thompson, and Ray Charles. Woodard joined Charles in 1980 and spent about eight years on the road with his band. He settled in Los Angeles in 1988 and has become a pillar of the Southern Calif, jazz scene, featured in The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orch., Jeannie and Jimmy Cheatham’s Sweet Baby Blues Band, and The Frank Capp Juggernaut. He toured with Horace Silver in the mid-1990s and Silver showcased his tenor work on his 1994 Columbia album Pencil Packin’ Papa. He has performed with Benny Carter and Harry “Sweets” Edison, and works around Southern Calif, with his own combo and a popular three-tenor group with revolving personnel, including Pias Johnson, Harold Land, Charles Owens, Pete Christlieb, and Herman Riley

Discography

California Cooking! (1991); The Frank Capp Trio Presents Rickey Woodard (1991); The Tokyo Express (1992); Night Mist (1992); Yazoo (1994); Quality Time (1995); The Silver Strut (1996); The Tenor Trio (1997).

—Andrew Gilbert