REVIEW: James Moody’s “4A”

To say that the four gentleman on this album are legends would be the cliche that everyone waits for at the beginning of an album review, and that is “an understatement”. In hip-hop circles you might say “in hip-hop, there are no legends” but a jazz cat will stand up and say “sit your ass down done, so we can teach you a lesson or two.” James Moody is one of those cats who at the age of 84 has seen music and trends come and go, but like a fine wine he is still with us.

4A (IPO) brings together Moody (tenor saxophone), Lewis Nash (drums), Todd Coolman (bass), and Kenny Barron, names you have no doubt seen on hundreds of not thousands of jazz records and CD’s. What you hear on this album is artistry and sheer talent, the kind of talent you will never be able to hear in this form again once they pass on. Every note, every improvisational moment, every nod and acknowledgment can be heard in tracks like “Secret Love”, “Stablemates”, “‘Round Midnight”, and “Bye Bye Blackbird”, a closing track that you’ll find yourself locked into. This is showmanship, this is elegance, this is great, this is jazz. They play together as if they were still in their early 20′s, perhaps much of today’s youth should listen to this and realize this is the music of their elders that they need to consume and take as their own before the stereotype of this being “old man music” grows. This is not “old man music”, this is jazz, and this is James Moody, one of the last of jazz’s primary elders still doing his thing.