Jazz saxophonist James Moody is best known for his 1949 Moody’s Mood for Love, but when he recorded the hit that eventually was elected into the Grammy Awards’ Hall of Fame, he said, he was just “trying to find the right notes.”
On Thursday, Moody, who recorded more than 50 solo albums as well as songs with the likes of Dizzy Gillespie and B.B. King, died at San Diego Hospice after a 10-month battle with pancreatic cancer, his wife said. He was 85. “James Moody had a sound, an imagination and heart as big as the moon. He was the quintessential saxophone player, and his Moody’s Mood for Love will forever be remembered in jazz history side by side with Coleman Hawkins’ classic Body and Soul,”’ friend Quincy Jones said.
“Today we’ve lost not only one of the best sax players to ever finger the instrument, but a true national treasure.”
His last album, Moody 4B, was recorded in 2008 and released in 2010, receiving a Grammy nomination earlier this month for best jazz instrumental album. Moody was nominated for several Grammys. He received a 1998 National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters award and a 2007 Kennedy Centre Living Jazz Legend award.