Flute/saxophonist and recording artist Charles Rahmat Woods has provided exciting and insightful performances in the Jazz idiom throughout the Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, and New York areas for over forty years. Born in Buffalo NY and a long time resident of Maryland, he has performed with an array of Jazz artist including Roy Haynes, Helen Humes, Don Cherry, Jean-Paul Bourelly, and Tarika Blue. He has also performed with world music purveyors Conjunto Peligro, Bantu, Ron Warren, Dawn Avery, and Larry Mitchell. He has been featured in DC Jazz Festival programs, the main stages of the Silver Spring Jazz Festival, The Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, and the Jazz in the Park Festival (VA). His ensembles have performed at a number of distinguished venues including The Smithsonian Anacostia Museum, The David Driskell Center of the University of Maryland, America's Islamic Heritage Museum, Syracuse University, The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Canadian Embassy, and the Manassas Center for the Arts. He is a Maryland State Arts Council touring artist.
A graduate of Syracuse University, he has studied under symphonic reed master Ralph D'mello, flutist Sue Roberts, and music historian Talik Abdul Basheer. His recordings include "Blues For Martyrs", "Tarika Blue Notebook", " Rahmat Shabazz Trio Plus", "The Language of Birds", "Rahmat Shabazz Original Jazz", "Modern Music Therapy: The Music of Roy Haynes", "The DC Love Orchestra" and others. His current touring program not only offers presentations of original compositions, but also moving arrangements of works by Jazz masters, with selective emphasis on works contributed by musicians who have Native American heritage such as bassist Oscar Pettiford, trumpeter Don Cherry, pianist Larry Redhouse, and saxophonist Jim Pepper.
In September 2022 the Maine Public Radio (Lewiston ME)'Jazz Flower' program did a two-hour retrospective of the music of Charles Rahmat Woods.
Ensemble configurations include instrumental Jazz Trio or Jazz Quartet, Jazz Quintet with featured vocalist, the DC Love Orchestra, and more.
