Tag: Eric Dolphy

Title: Eric Dolphy – At The Five Spot, Vol.1 (1961) [APO Remaster 2018]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

After having left the ensemble of Charles Mingus and upon working with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy formed a short-lived but potent quintet with trumpeter Booker Little, who would pass away three months after this recording. Despite all of the obstacles and subsequent tragedy, this quintet became legendary over the years – justifiably so – and developed into a role model for all progressive jazz combos to come. The combined power of Dolphy and Little – exploring overt but in retrospect not excessive dissonance and atonality – made them a target for critics but admired among the burgeoning progressive post-bop scene. With the always stunning shadings of pianist Mal Waldron, the classical-cum-daring bass playing of Richard Davis, and the colorful drumming of alchemistic Ed Blackwell, there was no stopping this group.

Live at the legendary Five Spot Café in New York City, this band set the Apple, and the entire jazz world on their collective ears. “Fire Waltz” demonstrates perfectly how the bonfire burns from inside the soul of these five brilliant provocateurs, as Dolphy’s sour alto and Little’s dour trumpet signify their new thing. Dolphy’s solo is positively furious, while Blackwell nimbly switches up sounds within the steady 3/4 beat. “Bee Vamp” does not buzz so much as it roars in hard bop trim. A heavy tandem line breaks and separates in the horn parts like booster rockets. Blackwell is even more amazing, and Dolphy’s ribald bass clarinet set standards that still influences players of the instrument. Where “The Prophet” is a puckery blues, it is also open armed with minor phrasings and stretched harmonics. This is where Waldron and Davis shine in their terra cotta facades of roughly hewn accompaniments to Dolphy and Little’s bold flavored statements. A shorter alternate take of “Bee Vamp” is newly available, shorter by two-and-a-half minutes and with a clipped introductory melody. Most hail this first volume, and a second companion album from the same sessions, as music that changed the jazz world as much as Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane’s innovative excursions of the same era. All forward thinking and challenged listeners need to own these epic club dates.

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Title: Eric Dolphy – Out There (1960) [Reissue 2003]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + Hi-Res FLAC

The follow-up album to Outward Bound, Eric Dolphy’s second effort for the Prestige/New Jazz label (and later remastered by Rudy Van Gelder) was equally praised and vilified for many reasons. At a time when the “anti-jazz” tag was being tossed around, Dolphy’s nonlinear, harshly harmonic music gave some critics grist for the grinding mill. A second or third listen to Dolphy’s music reveals an unrepentant shadowy side, but also depth and purpose that were unprecedented and remain singularly unique. The usage of bassist George Duvivier and cellist Ron Carter (an idea borrowed from Dolphy’s days with Chico Hamilton) gives the music its overcast color base, in many ways equally stunning and uninviting. Dolphy’s ideas must be fully embraced, taken to heart, and accepted before listening. The music reveals the depth of his thought processes while also expressing his bare-bones sensitive and kind nature. The bluesy “Serene,” led by Carter alongside Dolphy’s bass clarinet, and the wondrous ballad “Sketch of Melba” provide the sweetest moments, the latter tune identified by the fluttery introspective flute of the leader, clearly indicating where latter-period musicians like James Newton initially heard what would form their concept. Three pieces owe alms to Charles Mingus: his dark, moody, doleful, melodic, and reluctant composition “Eclipse”; the co-written (with Dolphy) craggy and scattered title track featuring Dolphy’s emblematic alto held together by the unflappable swing of drummer Roy Haynes; and “The Baron,” the leader’s dark and dirty, wise and willful tribute to his former boss, accented by a choppy and chatty solo from Carter. “17 West,” almost a post-bop standard, is briefly tonal with a patented flute solo and questioning cello inserts, while the unexpected closer written by Hale Smith, “Feathers,” is a haunting, soulful ballad of regret where Dolphy’s alto is more immediately heard in the foreground. A somber and unusual album by the standards of any style of music, Out There explores Dolphy’s vision in approaching the concept of tonality in a way few others – before, concurrent, or after – have ever envisioned.

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Title: Eric Dolphy – Out There (1960) [Analogue Productions 2018]
Genre: Jazz
Format: SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Out There is a 1960 jazz album by Eric Dolphy. It was Dolphy’s second album released as band leader, following his time with Charles Mingus. The album features four original compositions by Dolphy, one of which is a collaborative effort with Mingus. The album also features three covers, “Eclipse” by Mingus, “Sketch of Melba” by Randy Weston and “Feathers” by Hale Smith. The cover features a painting by Richard Jennings, referred to as “the Prophet” in Dolphy’s album, At the Five Spot.

In 1960, the free jazz pioneered by Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Horace Tapscott and a very few others was rejected by many musicians and most listeners. For the visionary saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Eric Dolphy, it was simply new music fed by the mainstream, a logical extension of the jazz tradition. In Far Cry without leaving form behind, he incorporated the spirit of adventure and abandon with which free jazz at its best infused freshness into jazz. Recording with a pianoless quartet that used Ron Carter’s cello as the other melody instrument, Dolphy worked from chord patterns developed within structures that depart from ordinary 32-bar jazz and popular song forms. He used 30-bar, 35-bar and 18-bar structures, but he also observed standard practice with 12-bar blues, “Serene.” Dolphy’s speech-like improvisations and Carter’s bowed or plucked cello solos soar over the impeccable and responsive accompaniments of bassist George Duvivier and drummer Roy Haynes.

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