James Moody

Copenhagen, 1968

James Moody was better known for playing the sax, but as you can see, he also could play the flute. A Georgia-born Count Basie fan from his earliest years, Moody would become very close with Dizzy Gillespie, with whom he would play bebop. Even after Gillespie passed, Moody would continue to collaborate, through decades, with the people who played with Gillespie the most.

By the late ’40s, said Moody, he had become so “scarred” by racism he moved to Europe for years.