Leading jazz alto saxophonist Phil Woods dies at age 83

NEW YORK - Phil Woods, 83, a leading alto saxophonist for more than 60 years whose piercing solos could also be heard on hit records by Billy Joel and Paul Simon, died Tuesday in Stroudsburg, Pa.

Mr. Woods' Pennsylvania ties ran deep. In the mid-1970s, he and his wife and manager, Jill Goodwin, settled in Delaware Water Gap in eastern Pennsylvania, where he cofounded the long-running Celebration of the Arts festival, which last month marked its 39th year.

He gave his last concert Sept. 4 in Pittsburgh, using oxygen - "my amplifier," he joked - to complete a performance of the classic album Charlie Parker With Strings with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported. That night, he announced he had emphysema and was retiring. He left his saxophone on the stage.

Mr. Woods' early influences included the alto saxophonists Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges. He made his name as a fiery disciple of bebop pioneer Charlie "Bird" Parker, earning the nickname "the new Bird" after Parker's untimely death in 1955. He was married to Parker's widow, Chan, for 17 years.

He released more than 50 albums as a leader and many more as a sideman with such luminaries as Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, and Clark Terry. He won four Grammys.

Mr. Woods was perhaps best known outside the jazz world for his alto sax solo at the end of Joel's 1977 hit recording "Just the Way You Are." He also performed on recordings by Simon ("Have a Good Time") and Steely Dan ("Doctor Wu").

Philip Wells Woods was born Nov. 2, 1931, in Springfield, Mass. After inheriting an alto sax from his uncle, he began taking lessons at age 12. As a teenager in 1945, he heard Parker's bebop recordings with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie.

"It was some truly new music and just completely freaked me out," he recalled in a 1992 AP interview.

After graduating from high school, he moved to New York, where he studied classical music by day at Juilliard and jazz in the clubs at night.

In the mid-1950s, he began leading his own combos. He got his big break when Quincy Jones asked him to join a 1956 world tour with Gillespie's band.

Mr. Woods was voted the top alto sax player nearly 30 times in Downbeat magazine's annual readers' poll starting in 1975. He was also a prolific composer and arranger and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2007.

In a statement Tuesday, Jones said: "There was a very specific reason Phil played on nearly every album I've made since 1956.. . . He not only was the best jazz alto sax player there was, he was a truly beautiful person."