ABSTRACT
On September 29, 2015 Phil Woods died. Often compared to such giants in the field as Charlie Parker and John Coltrane, Phil Woods is generally regarded to be one of the greatest jazz saxophone players in the history of the genre. Musical improvisation is, after all, a demanding activity and, as with all other human activities, people make mistakes. Skepticism about musical expression is typically fueled by one or both of two worries, both of which have their most famous modern formulation in the works of the Austrian music critic Eduard Hanslick. Much philosophical attention has been directed toward the question of understanding musical expression as a feature of pieces of music, considered objects of awareness to listeners. Jazz musicians frequently manipulate and play with tonal timbre in their improvisations. One technique players sometimes employ is a kind of tonal growl.
