Woody has been always one of my favorite trumpet players,I saw him many times and couldn't believe what I was hearing much of the time. I also learned early on to be wary of him: one night at the old Jazz Showcase on Rush Street I was sitting front and center. After an incredible set, I was thinking of talking to him. A young guy went up to him, gushing about how much he enjoyed the music and how Woody was his favorite trumpet player. Woody just looked at him for a second and said "Is that all the f*&k you got to say to me?" The kid was crushed, and I thought, well, perhaps this evening is not an occasion to initiate conversation with Mr. Shaw.
By coincidence, Stafford James has moved back to Chicago, and I have been hanging with him a bit. (I can see the building he lives in out my window.) I've heard a lot of Woody stories from him, but he said they always got along and he considers Woody to have had the best musical mind of anyone he ever worked with, jazz or classical.