Woody Shaw Jr., was born on December 24, 1944 in Laurinburg, North Carolina. Shaw grew up in Newark, New Jersey. He started playing bugle when he was 9 with  the Washington Carver Drum and Bugle Corps. When he was 11 he started playing trumpet. He attended the Arts High School in Newark. While in high school he started going into New York to see famous jazz musicians at the time play. Shaw’s early musical influences were Clifford Brown, Harry James and Louis Armstrong. When he graduated, he went on the road with Rufus Jones.

While playing in New York with a band that included Chick Corea, Shaw met Eric Dolphy. In 1963 Shaw played on Dolphy’s Iron Man album. The following year Dolphy paid for Shaw to fly out to Paris to perform with him. Dolphy died before Shaw made it to Paris, but Shaw went ahead with the trip. While in Paris, he played with Bud Powell, Kenny Clarke, and Johnny Griffin.

When he returned to the States, Shaw started playing with Horace Silver. He played with Silver for a year before playing with Max Roach for a year. He also played briefly with the Jazz Messengers. During the 60’s, Shaw appeared on many recordings, but didn’t make his recording debut as a band leader until the 70’s. He continued to record throughout the 70’s.

In the 80’s, Shaw moved to Bern, Switzerland, where he taught music in jazz schools and toured Europe with a few jazz bands.

On February 27, 1989, Shaw fell onto the tracks in the DeKalb subway station in Brooklyn, New York. He was struck by a train and his arm was severed. He stayed in the hospital until May 10 of that year when he died of kidney failure.