Remembering Dave Woods,
I often recall the many long nights of conversations I’d have with Dave, who I considered a good friend and confidant in “jazz guitar” and all its allurements to the musical muse in us all. Dave and I shared many charts, lessons, ideas, approaches, and a whole host of seemingly experimental and hot-off-the presses of our eclectic modal-minds for the enticement of the “vamp” and the “moving bass line,” with nowhere to go but back to the drawing board and carve out a new symbiotic universe of niche notes reaching for the stars. When I wrote out a most dear and heartwarming attempt to chord-melodize his father’s "Try A Little Tenderness,” I sent it and my recording to Dave — not so much for his approval—but more out of sincere and heartfelt umbrage for the talents and antics of his father whom I often walked past in the Brill Building in NYC when I studied with Barry Galbraith, a few doorsteps down the hall from where Harry Woods would rehearse a new song for the Morris Agency. I never knew who Harry Woods was at that time since the 70s until I met Dave Woods right here in this forum.
Dave Woods will forever remain a friend in my heart of hearts of music that I cherish and love, and for the precious legacy of treasured piece of Americana music his father, Harry Woods left us.
Thank you,
John Amato
