Cashbox : 10/12/1963

For jazzophiles who like their music modern and hot this new Contemporary set featuring the Jimmy Woods Sextet reading six far-out originals is an extremely good bet. Alto saxist Woods and his crew are all superior, inventive musicians and their hard-driving musical wares are aptly displayed on Conflict, Aim and Look To Your Heart. A group to watch.

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American Record Guide
Donald Heckman : December, 1963

It is becoming practically obligatory for me to refer each month to at least one recording by a new player in the jazz avant garde. This month we have a powerful alto saxophonist from California named Jimmy Woods (Conflict, Contemporary S-7612). Woods’s tone reminds me of another new player, Ken McIntyre, and his rhythmic inflections are hard and direct, not unlike the fashion of Eric Dolphy. Unfortunately, Contemporary has recorded him in the midst of some hard bop mainstreamers. While players like Harold Land and Carmell Jones are thoroughly acceptable in the expression of their own personal atavisms, they are not exactly right as accompanists for Woods, whose interests obviously lie in other directions (Jones’s devotion to Clifford Brown, in fact, becomes just plain annoying after a while). Curiously, Woods’ compositions, which dominate this album, are fairly traditional, sounding like a conventional blending of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, and Clifford Brown. His playing, however, is thoroughly modern in conception, although I do detect, from time to time, usually in runs of legato eighth-notes, a certain rhythmic inaccuracy. It would be interesting to hear him in a less cluttered context, say with the accompaniment of bass, drums, and perhaps one other horn.

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Asbury Park Press (Asbury Park, NJ)
Don Lass : 12/21/1963

Woods’ second album justifies the rave notices that followed his Awakening LP, released over a year ago. Woods’ music is avant garde modern jazz but it is played with feeling and direction. He is a superb musician as an alto saxophonist and as a composer. His six compositions that make up this album are probing in nature and employ refreshing orchestral effects. Each horn, two saxes and a trumpet, is given a vital role in each score with the trumpet playing lead and the saxes supporting or opposing it. The resulting sound is unique and beyond the usual boundaries of jazz.

Woods’ alto playing is rooted in the complex John Coltrane approach. His style features a slashing, fervid attack that nevertheless is melodic and rhythmic. The frenzy in his playing, expressing the personal conflicts in his life, is controlled excitement. He is capable too of conveying warmth as in his solo on Look to Your Heart. The five supporting musicians complement Woods well, with Elvin Jones, drums, fiercely driving the hornmen in his progressive style. Carmell Jones, trumpet, and Harold Land, tenor sax, play in a more conventional style than Woods, providing a pleasant contrast. Aim is the most advanced and interesting piece of the album while the title tune is nearest the norm. The album as a whole is a tempting study in modern jazz.

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Audio
Bertram Stanleigh : January, 1964

Six compositions by Jimmy Woods, demonstrate his talent and the variety of his inventiveness and provide an effective showcase
for an excellent group of modern musicians: Jimmy Woods, alto, Carmell Jones, trumpet, Harold Land, tenor, Andrew Hill, piano, George Tucker, bass, and Elvin Jones, drums. The title of the set derives from one of the pieces, but it is also indicative of the feeling of contention between varying ideas that pervades each of the numbers. Their creator contributes a set of serious liner notes in which he describes some of the emotional conflicts that stem from his desire to make music and to pursue his studies in Sociology at Los Angeles State College. Each of the works is tightly scored, making maximum technical demands on the players and affording no opportunity for extended solos. In spots, the complicated juxtaposition of voices is downright ugly. Woods has attempted to say considerably more than actually emerges, but the very real conviction in these works is stamped in each measure. The present album may not represent total fulfillment for this young man, and it is likely that we will have to wait several more years before he acquires the simplicity and economy of expression that he needs if he is to become more articulate, but he is saying more and has more promise than any of the other young men who have emerged in the last dozen years.

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HiFi / Stereo Review
Joe Goldberg : April, 1964

Interest: Rising composer-altoist
Performance: Coltrane-ish
Recording: Very good
Stereo Quality: Very good

Altoist Jimmy Woods’ first album for Contemporary, called Awakening!, established him as a fresh, promising voice. Now here is his second disc, made with musicians of wider reputation than those of the first. Although it is far above the usual run of today’s jazz music, Woods’ work has begun to fall into standard categories.

There is, over-all, a strong Coltrane influence – only partially because of the presence of Elvin Jones and George Tucker. Harold Land, too, sounds more and more like Coltrane. The routine treatment of the title track, Conflict (Wood is credited with all the compositions), is remarkably reminiscent of a piece called Light Blue, recorded by Coltrane in the middle Fifties, with pianist Andrew Hill here playing what was given to the guitar earlier.

It may be of some significance that the most successful and original track, the charming waltz called Look to Your Heart, is also the only number on which Woods plays without the other horns. It is as if here he does not have to conform to the styles of his more established peers, but can go his own adventurous and melodic way.

The notes, which are by and about Woods, carry the concept of jazzman as tortured philosopher a little too far.

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Kansas City Call (Kansas City, MO)
Albert Anderson : 01/24/1964

Two Capitol albums and a Contemporary LP command our jazz spotlight this week. All are interesting waxings.

The jmost interesting of the three, is, however, the Contemporary entry, titled Conflict, and which stars leader-composer Jimmy Woods and the talented Elvin Jones, on drums.

This is not Jimmy’s first album (Awakening was his initial effort), but it must establish him definitely and fully as a composer and jazz leader of the first rank. … Not only are the tunes well scored, but Woods himself provides a great deal of impetus to the session with his forceful but tuneful solos. … His format is an interesting one that might be adopted profitably by some of the greedy young jazz leaders of the Johnny-come-lately variety. … Woods let his trumpet star lead into the each number, before he himself moves in subtly and artfully. … Woods’ compositions provide a great deal of balance to the playing of the sextet, and the orchestration as a whole is tops. … The top tune is Aim, a highly lyrical number played with a great deal of feeling and expression. Heart, a ballad is a close second. … Just watch this album rise in popularity. … IT’S TOPS.

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Kansas City Star (Kansas City, MO)
James Scott : 10/06/1963

Conflict is laboratory work under the direction of Jimmy Woods. It is notable chiefly for the drums of Elvin Jones and Carmell Jones’ trumpet, which is the most coherent sound audible in this. The arrangements are martial, Harold Land honks and Woods, who plays alto, wanders in search of something.

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Lafayette Journal (Lafayette, IN)
Frank Arganbright : 10/19/1963

The Jimmy Woods Sextet, with Elvin Jones the drummer, provides a rare experience in jazz on a Contemporary stereo LP, Conflict. The title of the album is the title of the lead-off tune and it does not wander off into a meaningless mess of dissonance as the name suggests. The group is given an opportunity to show spirit. Woods’ alto sax playing is even and sometimes very exciting; Harold Land is expert on tenor sax; Andrew Hill, pianist, has a lot of spark and George Tucker is one of the finest bass players. Aim and Look to Your Heart are a couple of other selections which come off very nicely.

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News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
R.L. : 10/27/1963

Alto saxist Jimmy Woods and his sextet have done a six-track album which Woods calls Conflict. It’s on Mercury and derives, he says, out of “the Negro experience in America.” Without attempting to assess its success as music which reflects the creative energies of people on the march during a time of conflict, the reviewer can say it is urgent, intense modern jazz – frequently complex, but sometimes moving.

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Portland Oregonian (Portland, OR)
William Hilliard : 10/13/1963

The social conflict that continues to engulf the United States gets an airing on this original by Woods. The alto saxophonist composed all six selections. This is an emotional work and the message will undoubtedly be missed by some. The drumming of Elvin Jones won’t. His inventive work here is brilliant.

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San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, CA)
Richard Hadlock : 10/06/1963

Woods, one of the best young altoists in the Los Angeles area, seems to stand on the brink of the “new thing.” He has not abstracted his playing in the manner of, say, Ornette Coleman, but there are hints of that kind of total freedom.

This set is unusual in that all six of Woods’ compositions are related to the theme of conflict, as he sees it. Conscious social message plays a secondary role, however, to the music itself and in this case, happily, the music is quite good.

Additional excitement in the rhythm department is whipped up by drummer Elvin Jones, although he and bassist George Tucker never quite find the mutual groove they seek. Other participants in this hard-hitting session are tenor saxophonist Harold Land, trumpeter Carmell Jones and pianist Andrew Hill.

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Santa Barbara News-Press (Santa Barbara, CA)
Bert Willard : 11/16/1963

Some very fine jazz records have come in lately. Among them is a heady original, Conflict (Contemporary 3612) in which alto saxist Jimmy Woods, who was one of the standouts in Gerald Wilson’s sizzling Monterey Jazz Festival band, goes out on his own, to demonstrate his ideas on new jazz. Backed by an all-star aggregation, all of them good enough to be leaders on their own, Woods employs a style rooted in the style of John Coltrane, and yet recognizable as his own. Look to your Heart, Apart Together, Coming Home, Pazmuerte, and the title tune, Conflict, are deserving of special mention. So are Harold Land, tenor sax; Carmell Jones, trumpet; Andy Hill, piano; George Tucker, bass, and Elvin Jones, drums.

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Valley Times (North Hollywood, CA)
Leonard Feather : 09/28/1963
Album of the Week

Intense, challenging modern sounds, featuring three of the hornmen (Woods, Carmell Jones, Harold Land) who were prominent in Gerald Wilson’s great band at Monterey.

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Van Nuys News (Van Nuys, CA)
Mike Davenport : 11/08/1963

Jimmy Woods is a powerful musician, both in purely musical terms and in the emotional content of his playing. While I don’t think you could call his playing avant garde, in the Ornette Coleman j or Eric Dolphy school, it is nonetheless extremely advanced.

His tone has a pure, thin, reed-like quality, and he favors the upper register. His favorite method of phrasing is to build clusters of notes in a gradually ascending pattern.

He and drummer Elvin Jones are the quantities in this album which set it apart from the average jazz album. Elvin continually impresses me with his extraordinarily complex, driving percussion work. He is probably the most outstanding drummer in jazz today.

Carmell Jones and Harold Land are both excellent soloists, but their playing suffers by its predictability next to Jimmy Woods.

All six compositions in the album are by Jimmy, and are as interesting and individual as his playing. Jimmy Woods is a musician to watch.

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Down Beat : 11/21/1963
Pete Welding : 4.5 stars

Altoist Woods, as his first album (Awakening) indicated and this second confirms, is an important, vital young jazzman who has a great deal to say and who says it vigorously and excitingly.

As a soloist, he is a slashingly urgent, hard-toned practitioner of what is loosely termed the “new thing”; he uses a fully developed attack and style rooted in both John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy.

As a composer, he is even more gifted. He already is his own man, for his lines are original, stamped with inevitability, and possessed of a sinewy, tough lyricism that is pared to the bone. His are strong, rock-ribbed compositions that speak directly, forcefully – even brusquely – with no trace of rhetoric or decorative flourish.

His scoring is rich and venturesome, and the third horn (Awakening used a format of alto, trumpet, and rhythm) is used to excellent purpose as an integral part of the arrangements, and not just to flesh out the sound. On four of the five selections using all three horns (Look to Your Heart is an alto solo) the trumpet carries the lead with the saxophones in support and opposition, employed variously in unison, contrapuntally, to provide a harmonic underpinning, or to set up purely rhythmic tensions. The over-all sound of the group and the arrangements suggests a judicious blend of the best features of the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet and the Cannonball Adderley Sextet over a more convolute, “sprung” rhythm. Lyrical, yes – but with guts.

The title piece is the one composition in which the Adderley influence is most evident, for the riffish line and the voicing of the horns over the strutting martiallike piano figure is markedly similar to that used by Adderley in several of his group’s most recent pieces. The contrast between Woods’ searing, unrestrained playing and the more conventional work of Land and Carmell Jones is noticeable, yet not disturbingly so.

Coming Home, with its wistful, sadness-tinged theme carried by Jones’ bittersweet-edged trumpet, is a very affecting composition, one of the most successful in the album. There is a decided Coltrane influence in both saxophonists’ solos: Woods’ alto occasionally suggests the nasal, pinched ululations of Trane’s soprano, while Land at times refers to Coltrane’s dry tone and phrasing inflections on the larger horn.

Aim is, to my way of thinking, the most remarkable piece in the album. Again, the trumpet carries the upward spiralling theme over chordal and rhythmic saxophone punctuations. The composition is a capsule story. After the statement of the ardent motif, Woods embarks on a fervid, yearning alto solo, high-pitched, wailing, and delivered with a frenzied restlessness that suggests a moth feverishly pitching itself against the mantle of a lantern. Land’s temperate tenor follows, marking a return to “reason,” and Jones’ even, beautifully balanced trumpet (with his lambent tone) returns to the quest freshened but more deliberate. Throughout, Elvin Jones’ drums are almost majestic in their unhurried drive, and Tucker’s bass is solid, ever pushing. It’s a lovely, powerful piece.

Among the others, Heart is an ardent, reflective ballad that serves as a solo showcase for Woods’ alto. His sound reminds forcibly of Ken McIntyre’s-but only the sound; his phrasing in the improvised segments is quite different. There is superb support furnished by Tucker and drummer Jones throughout this number and especially in the choruses in which pianist Hill drops out. (Tucker’s work on this disc, in fact, might serve as a textbook for aspiring bassists.)

Pazmuerte is notable for Land’s most gripping solo of the date, a strong, flowing, seamless improvisation that seems conceived as one long, unfolding thought.

Conflict is a gripping, ever-interesting album that should be part of any representative collection of the new jazz. Woods seems destined for a very bright future indeed (and that’s why I’m saving the five-star rating). Certainly the present is bright.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

From the first forceful, marching phrases of Conflict, this album takes firm possession of the listener, and as the six original works by Woods move relentlessly forward, propelled by the urgently brilliant drumming of Elvin Jones, Woods message may well leave the sensitive listener emotionally spent. But be will have had as intense an experience as jazz has to offer today.

Woods music, deeply felt, and completely honest, comes directly out of the Negro experience in America. In its struggle for freedom and equality the Negro movement is not only militant in rising to meet a challenge, it also stimulates its participants, makes them alive and aware. It is no accident that the “engaged” jazz of Mingus, Coltrane, Coleman, Rollins and Jimmy Woods is so vibrant with anger, passion, humor and warmth. It is music which, consciously or not, reflects the creative energies of people on the march in a time of conflict.

In the following tape recorded interview, Woods frankly discusses bis emotional situation during 1962 and early 1963 when the material in this album was conceived and written.

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Below by Jimmy Woods
April 30, 1963

The material in this album took form in the past year because it was the right time for it. As I grow and become more mature, I feel better able to understand things happening in our society. I have had tensions and anxieties all along. First, naturally, they arose because of my race. I experience and am aware of this as is every Negro. For me life has been a time of conflict on many levels.

The world situation has much to do with it. This is something which affects us all, either directly or indirectly. I’m affected by everything that happens, but I don’t have much to say about what happens. The only way I can say anything is through playing. Through playing I can find relief from many of the tensions I experience being a person here in America. This is the only way that I can be myself, I wanted to call the album Conflict for personal reasons also. I have an ambivalent attitude toward playing. The way the critics reviewed my first album gave me courage to go on into music a little further. But my emotional situation after that album was that of wanting to play so much, and not really knowing whether I could communicate my feelings.

In my personal life I was, and still am, at a crossroad. There are my responsibilities as a husband and father, to support my family and seek security. And then there’s my love for music. So I am torn between both – a definite conflict. It was a course in Sociopathic Behavior with Professor Diehl at Los Angeles State College (where I am majoring in Sociology) which clarified many of my thoughts on this subject.

Since music is a part of me, when I feel conflict, anxiety, tension, love, or any emotion, it comes out in this way. To be frank, often I have no direction and no control over what I do. It just comes out. But when it comes out, I try to analyze it, and try to understand it. That applies to the music in this album. I didn’t set out to create an album called Conflict, and write material to conform to that idea. The material was suggested to me by the feelings I had within. After it was written, I could analyze it and see what it means to me. The album will be heard in different ways by every person who listens to it. I don’t expect anyone would have the same feelings about it that I do.

CONFLICT: This is a time of – of almost war, and the marching spirit in the tune – I feel it there all the way – has a meaning to me of conflict.

COMING HOME: A person’s attitude toward life is a reflection of his attitude toward himself. And so you always come home, you always come home again from every situation in life, from every tension, every anxiety. Even though things are a drag and a person suffers in life, in the ending everything works out okay, if you look to your heart.

AIM: I was definitely thinking about war when I wrote it. It’s in triple meter, a slow blues, with changes that are more advanced than regular blues changes.

APART TOGETHER: The essence of conflict really is that people agree to disagree. And so, you’re apart together. You reach a decision you’re apart, and try to resolve it, most often by aggression. There’s another musical meaning to the title – the three horn parts can be played separately or together. They are parts together.

LOOK TO YOUR HEART: This is how I resolve personal conflicts. I feel I should be able to come to a rational conclusion about which direction in life I’ll go, and if I’m lucky enough to stay in music, which direction in music I’ll go. But I know I won’t be able to figure it out logically. I’ll just have to look into myself, and, so to speak, let my heart rule my mind. This doesn’t seem the logical way to do it. But I can’t find any other way. I’ll just have to look into myself, and be truthful to myself. If I can do that, I’ll come on home where I’m supposed to be.

PAZMUERTE: That’s a combination of Spanish terms – peace and death. The ultimate alternatives in all situations of conflict.

I was very fortunate in the musicians who played on the date. They are all wonderful, and contributed so much. Harold and Carmell are very well known in Los Angeles, of course. George is excellent, and really made the music come alive. Andrew is new, and, I think, going to be very important. He fitted into my conceptions beautifully. You know, whether I knew it or not, when I wrote the music I had Elvin in mind. It seems as if, in retrospect, Elvin – of all the drummers I’ve ever heard – Elvin was really the only one who could have done the album. In my arrangements I wanted to experiment, and so I needed a framework of solid, experienced players. And in blowing, I wanted that firm support under me so I could feel free to do anything.