When it comes to having fun, few events can compete with a birthday party. Fun is clearly at the summit of the agenda on 80 Years Young: Live at the Blue Note, recorded at the famed New York City nightspot on March 26, 2005, to celebrate saxophonist James Moody's eightieth birthday, and released on the same date in 2025 to honor the centenary of his birth. Moody, who with trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie comprised one of the most humorous and fun-loving duos in jazz history, died in December 2010 at age eighty-five.

In addition to being a superlative jazz musician, Moody was a spellbinding monologist and entertainer, a talent he reveals at the outset on the clever and comical "Benny's from Heaven" and later on the delightful "Moody's Mood for Love," on each of which he indulges his penchant for yodeling and using several changes of voice and demeanor to underscore the comedic message. Following a brief introduction from impresario George Wein, Moody springs with abandon into the farcical tale of "Benny," who awaits his soldier/father after a three-year tour of duty and is told in answer to his understandably bemused questions about his offspring's origin that "Benny's from Heaven." Moody uses every means at his disposal to embellish the implausible narrative and the audience laps it up, rewarding his roguery with a resounding ovation.

Moody shifts from tenor sax to flute on