LIVE WIRE LISTINGS - Swanage Jazz Festival 2002.
The Tony Woods Project is a pulling together of quality contemporary musicians who are adept at classy improvisation aimed at your soul. Tony Woods fronts the band on reeds, along with Bob Millett vibes, Mike Outram guitar, Andy Hamill bass and Milo Fell on drums. Our senses were lulled into submission with an old English folk tune played with a very contemporary sound on vibes, with enhanced resonance from the bass. Tony's flute was very cooling as the audience drifted off to the rhythm and sound world of this band. Wonderful Bulgarian and folk influences came together in The Meeting Place to create a melting pot bubbling with good things and we drifted in a wonderful sea of sound, doing nothing but let the musical colours touch us. To contrast, the Latinised What Is This Thing Called Love? was next, and several of the barefoot audience were aching to dance, myself included, but the hypnotic qualities of this band meant we didn't want to take our eyes off them for fear of breaking the powerful energies that they were giving to the audience with their music. The self-penned High Seas then tumbled onto our shores. Tony's mesmerizing and emotional sax reduced me to tears as the music crept under my skin and coiled its way into my soul.

This was tangible and tactile music, a gift passed by hand and mouth from the musicians to the audience that we opened from within. It is to the eternal credit of the Tony Woods Project that a collection of wood, gut, skins and metal can impose itself so successfully on your emotions. Thank you for your freely given gift, boys. Fiona.

JAZZ UK MAGAZINE - Sep/Oct 2001.
If ever a band deserved a higher profile, it has to be the Tony Woods Project. Woods a sax/flute player with a superb alto sound, closed the spring/summer series of gigs at North London's Lauderdale House, and many regulars thought it one of the best bands the venue had presented. A cool and cerebral approach might have been suggested by the yards of sheet music and tricky time-signatures, but there was nothing reserved about the playing of Stuart Laurence (drums), Dave Whitford (bass), Rob Millett (vibes), and Mike Outram (guitar) and the sheer engaging intelligence of Woods' compositions. Some of them have a folksy edge, but 'Old Joe Clarke', a traditional tune that surfaced on Pat Metheney's '80/81' album turned into one of the most disciplined high energy explosions, with Outram's guitar really flying. European sensibility and American grooves united. (BRIAN BLAIN.)

CLARINET AND SAXOPHONE MAGAZINE - Summer 1998.
With a combination of guitar, bass, drums, vibes and solo saxophone/flute what does one expect? Perhaps Earth, Wind and Fire, or something modelled on one of the Goodman small groups, or maybe Weather Report? What we get is nothing like any of these, but a highly organised, very contrapuntal small group with a soloist who doffs his hat more in the direction of Desmond, Konitz and Hodges, rather than Braxton, Brecker or Shorter. The refreshing sound of jazz-rock fusion minus an assault on the ears via relentlessly pulverising rock rhythms is a good example of the way in which we may hopefully be heading.

Tony Woods and his group, of whom we know little except that they are English, for the CD liner notes are less than informative, is clearly a player/composer with a mind of his own and the ability to put his ideas over with clarity and authority. His own playing contains idiosyncratic portamenti, but to some purpose rather than merely imposed trademarks. There is a plaintive, haunting quality on several tracks, but the most impressive aspects are the ways in which carefully contrived ensemble passages, whether as unison sax and guitar, or block-scored with vibes under-pinning the texture, interweave with the improvisatory sections. A special delight is the use of lyrical marimba playing, and an almost Spanish cum sitar sound produced by the guitarist. The opening title Sister Song employs highly contrapuntal effects from the five players, and Meeting Place is a melting pot of 6/8 rhythms and ethnic quotations. In Ballad Up Ballard Down the mournful sound of the sax is followed by misty vibes in a duo with the bass. Civil Peace is gentle jazz with some beguiling marimba. The simple process of subtracting instruments along the way accomplishes the gradual decrescendo in the extended coda-not so easy in what is already what Mancini would have dubbed 'a small combo.' Arranged passages intersperse the solos, and those two overworked words 'effective' and 'interesting' are nevertheless appropriate here. High Seas features some introspective wailing saxophone, and then develops into a raga-like section. Folk Song is almost entirely a solo for wood flute, with the Andean sound of haunting ethnic memories, rather than any orchestral associations. Relatives starts with a ground bass from marimba driving along with the propulsive rhythms of Glass-inspired minimilism, to be joined by energetic riffs to a final build-up.

An unusual disc, not falling readily into any particular category, but bringing a new soloist to our notice, and certainly unveiling the musical possibilities of a small group using today's rhythms and style within the constraints of academic formalism.(Gordon Lewin)

JAZZWISE - June 1998.
Saxophonist Tony Woods leads a project which moves in several intriguingly different directions over the course of a strong album, and avoids simply replicating an established American model in favour of musical explorations which often seem very consciously English, and not only through the plangent pastoral flavour which is directly declared in 'Folk Song', but informs several other cuts as well, notably the evocative 'Ballad Up Ballard Down' and 'The Half Step'. The instrumentation featuring Mark Johns on guitars and Robert Millett on vibes and marimba rather than a second horn and piano rings the changes on the standard jazz quintet in imaginatively applied fashion, both in the thoughtful arrangements and more freely responsive improvisatory passages. (Kenny Mathieson)

The GUARDIAN GUIDE - May 1998.
There's a corner of British jazz in which pastoral expressiveness, folk idioms and the like offer a distinct alternative to anything from mainstream America. The Tony Woods Project's album High Seas undoubtedly puts them at the forefront, vibraphone and guitar setting the style alongside the leader as he switches between saxophones and a wooden flute. A former student at both the Leeds and the Guildhall Schools of Music, Woods has a top soloist award from the Dunkirk Jazz Festival among his achievements and was part of the band Within the Word. (Ronald Atkins)

JAZZ JOURNAL - April 1998.
Folky flavours find frequent favour in Woods's music, the light textures and dancing rhythms of the opening piece setting the style for most of the record (the scurrying 12-tone Rowing Blues a stark exception). Woods is a former student of Leeds College and The Guildhall, and in 1986 he won the soloist's prize at the Dunkirk International Jazz Festival. His own playing, lyrical and largely diatonic, is of a piece with the idiom in which he writes, and he is accompanied by a good group, with guitarist Mark Johns a prominent and satisfying soloist whose chromatic and bluesy playing brings a welcome grit to the music. In sum, a session that successfully blends folk and jazz without blunting the edge of the latter. (Mark Gilbert)

JAZZ UK MAGAZINE - March/April 1998.
Finally, two projects by players who have definitely found their own voice... saxophonist Tony Woods also presents an absorbing collection of originals on 'High Seas' (FMR CD44), with the highly inventive collaboration of Mark Johns (guitar), Robert Millett (vibes and marimba), bassist Andy Hamill and Gary Wilcox on drums. The whole thing adds up to a light and airy collage of sounds which reflect a range of musical cultures, but which are skilfully combined in Tony Woods' compositions - there's something in every track that will hook your attention. Fresh, lively interesting, and well worth checking out. (PETE MARTIN.)

MUSICIAN MAGAZINE - December 1997.
Another album of original music, this time by Tony Woods, plus a trad folk song. This one, although studio recorded, has a very 'live' feel to it - the compositions are well understood by the musicians and the confidence shows in their playing. The tasteful use of vibes and marimba (Robert Millett), instead of keyboards, gives this CD a very listenable quality. Tony Woods excels as composer and leader on saxophones and wood flute on the nine tracks, although as the insert suggests, there are times when one is somewhat bemused by all that is going on. This is 'now' jazz of excellent quality and I'm sure Tony's project will be a force to reckon with in the future. (John Critchinson)

AVANT MAGAZINE - Winter 1997: This is definitely one of the label's sharpest releases for a while. Oh! so thankfully it gets away from that dull theme-solo-theme approach of far too many jazz recordings. This album simply contains some exceptional small group writing by Woods. It is no criticism to say that there is a lightness of touch in the leader's own playing that finds expression in his writing. That's lightness as in delicacy not as in lightweight. Several of the songs have at their heart a sense of cultural or stylistic clash. Sisters' Song and Ballad Up Ballard Down have an Eastern or Middle Eastern modal feel. The Meeting Place opens with an almost folky sound, but shifts later in its development to a free sax and drums workout. On this track and on Rowing Blues Woods also uses rock rhythms effectively and gives the music a different dynamic.The line-up allows plenty of space to the musicians, but also gives the compositions the chance to grow, change and expand. Of the players Johns proves a particularly good foil for the leader and some of their unison playing is quite exceptional. His tone is really beautiful and his solo on Rowing Blues is right on the money. On Folk Song his acoustic playing shows confidence and directness, where a lesser player would slide into whimsy. Millett also shines, essaying some pretty complex lines at speed and contributes lyrical solos on vibes and marimba. The rhythm section of Hamill and Willcox provides a strong and sensitive support to the music, despite the constant changes of key, time and mood. Woods uses his band to good effect and his confidence in the musicians pays off in their really classy playing. It is good to hear jazz that succeeds in being individualistic and draws on a range of 'non-American' forms and styles with skill, imagination and elan. That Woods' album achieves this without sounding like an ECM session shows some class. (DUNCANHEINING)

QUOTES:Tim Whitehead.

"Tony Woods is, above all, a contemporary jazz musician. As a composer, his work is rooted in modern grooves, as a saxophonist and improviser he has that assuredness and command that allows for the music to emerge from spaces and silences, and he has the raw passionate edge and tender lyricism, which allows him to travel where he will in the music. He is a natural alto player, and his atmospheric and loose compositions allow the musicians to flow around the structures in the spirit of improvisation, groove, and vocalisation which is jazz 'root and branch'. The music has a poise and dignity to it which is rare; I have no doubt his enormous talent will soon be given its due."

Ian Carr.

"Tony Woods is a superlative saxophonist with a beautiful sound. He never overplays, and is prepared to wait - nothing is forced, which is why his playing projects the utmost emotion. He is also an excellent composer of themes which are completely conceived and realised melodically, harmonically and rhythmically. His group is very fine, creating music of the heart - never merely of the glands - and full of light and shade and surprises. Whether written or improvised, the music of his group is always 'saying something'."

South West Jazz.

". . . wonderful tone colours complement the intriguing yet approachable contemporary tunes. Lyricism and clarity are so often overlooked in jazz. . ."