One of the true masters of the bop vocabulary, Phil Woods has had his own sound since the mid-50s and stuck to his musical guns throughout a remarkably productive career. There has never been a doubt that he is one of the top alto saxophonists alive, and he has lost neither his enthusiasm nor his creativity through the years.

Woods first alto was left to him by an uncle, and he started playing seriously when he was 12. He gigged and studied locally until 1948, when he moved to New York. Woods studied with Lennie Tristano, at the Manhattan School of Music, and at Juilliard, where he majored in clarinet. He worked with Charlie Barnet (1954), Jimmy Raney (1955), George Wallington, the Dizzy Gillespie Orchestra, Buddy Rich (1958-1959), Quincy Jones (1959-1961), and Benny Goodman (for BGs famous 1962 tour of the Soviet Union), but has mostly headed his own groups since 1955, including co-leadership of a combo with fellow altoist Gene Quill in the 50s logically known as Phil & Quill. Woods, who married the late Charlie Parkers former wife Chan in the 1950s (and became the stepfather to singer Kim Parker), was sometimes thought of as the new Bird due to his brilliance in bop settings, but he never really sounded like a copy of Parker.