Abe Woodley
piano, vibes
Detroit pianist who also played vibes, one of the older, little-known local musicians Barry names among those he learned from in his Detroit years.
- mentions
- 1
- recordings
- 1
- Barry speaking
- 1
What Barry says
Listing the many pianists Detroit had, Barry names Will Davis, Boo-Boo Turner and Abe Woodley, adding that Woodley played vibes too, before he turns to Theodore Shieldy.
After recalling his early road work with Ruth Brown, Barry says there were plenty of good older musicians around, and the one he names is Abe Woodley. He adds that he can picture their faces better than he can recall their names.
In the Artists House interview, Barry names Woodley as the vibe player among Detroit’s many musicians, and says good players there would set a youngster straight in a minute, as a tenor player once did when Barry had the form of I Got Rhythm wrong.
Interview: Detroit and after2:222:56Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶624Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶625Barry Harris, Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Program ¶149
Asked about his mentors, Barry names Kenny Burrell and Tommy Flanagan as the best of the young players, then players nobody has heard of: Abraham Woodley, Will Davis, Phil Hill and Art Mardigan. They could really play, he says, and he was lucky to have mentors like that.
In his own words
We had a lot of piano players. Will Davis. Boo-Boo Turner. Abe Woodley who played vibes, too.
there were a lot of older musicians, who were good musicians, you know. Abe Woodley, I mean I can name names, you know.
But then you start naming the ones no one has ever heard—Abraham Woodley, Will Davis, Phil Hill, Art Mardigan.
Every mention
1 moments in the recordings, 1 of them Barry speaking. Each says who is talking.
Interview: Detroit and after
- 2:22
Among Detroit’s many musicians, ‘A. Woodley, the vibe player’ (the old captions had ‘a good leader, vibe player’).
In the interviews and notes
After agreeing that Tommy Flanagan reached New York a little before him, Barry tells Ted Panken that Detroit had plenty of pianists, among them Will Davis, Boo-Boo Turner and Abe Woodley, who doubled on vibes.
Barry tells Aaron Graves there were many good older musicians, naming only Abe Woodley, and then recalls a tenor player who showed him the proper form of I Got Rhythm.
De Lima transcribes Barry in the Artists House interview with Gary Giddins: Detroit had a great many musicians, Abe Woodley the vibe player among them, and good ones who would set a young player straight.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶624Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶625
In an audio interview on mentors, Barry names Abraham Woodley with Will Davis, Phil Hill and Art Mardigan as Detroit players nobody has heard of who could really play.
Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶646Brian Jude de Lima, Reanimating Dissonance: Cultivating the Antecedents of Barry Harris’ Concept of Movement as a Multidimensional Pedagogical Tool for Ontario Post-Secondary Jazz Curricula ¶1307
Summing up Barry’s teachers, de Lima lists Abraham Woodley among his Detroit mentors, with Kenny Burrell, Tommy Flanagan, Will Davis, Phil Hill, Art Mardigan and Cleorphus Curtis.
Method ideas nearby
Ideas of the method taught in the classes where they come up, with how many mentions fall in each.