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Eric Dolphy Quintet: Outward Bound
by J Hunter
Unlike Ornette Coleman--who wanted to blow orthodox jazz form out of the water--John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy initially worked to change the system from within, making music that fit the jazz standards of the time while injecting their own unique spin. This is why Outward Bound, Dolphy's first recording as a leader, is a not-so-distant relative of Coltrane's My Favorite Things (Atlantic, 1960).
On balance, both discs have a conventional base. While Coltrane stuck to the Great American ...
Continue ReadingEric Dolphy: Last Date
by Andrey Henkin
Eric Dolphy Last DateInterakt 2005 Though jazz has its fair share of premature deaths, few were as tragic as that of Eric Dolphy, both because it was avoidable and that it cut off a monumental player in his prime. The DVD issue of Last Date, a loving documentary from 1991, is an opportunity to celebrate Dolphy's significant, if sadly too short, legacy. Centered around his last month alive ...
Continue ReadingEric Dolphy: The Complete Uppsala Concert
by Andrey Henkin
One of my pet theories is that one of the kickstarts for creative indigenous jazz in Europe was the tours undertaken there by Eric Dolphy as a leader (late summer 1961, summer 1964) and with John Coltrane (winter 1961) and Charles Mingus (summer 1964). The passage through the region of such an iconoclastic figure as Dolphy, particularly at these two hypercreative moments for him, must have had some effect on the local musicians who heard or, in some cases, played ...
Continue ReadingCharles Mingus: Mingus At Antibes
by C. Michael Bailey
Charles Mingus. You just have to know that he would have nudged, cajoled, or bullied his way into the top of this list, even twenty years after his death. Mingus at Antibes is a kinetic, frenetic, dysthymic document of the genius of an overly stimulated, overly indulgent, and overly gifted personality. Mingus was not unlike Mozart in the respect that many of Mozart's contemporaries pondered why God granted such an undeserving imp such talent. So with Mingus. How could such ...
Continue ReadingEric Dolphy: A Deeply Dedicated Musician
by Nic Jones
In the forty years since his death Eric Dolphy's career has taken on a kind of substance that it never had in his lifetime. Partly this is due to the course jazz has taken within those forty years, one of the end results of which is a scene that in many ways is more conservative now than it was then.Brian Morton has referred to Dolphy's career as a series of transitions1 and there is something in this, hinting ...
Continue ReadingEric Dolphy: Out to Lunch
by Trevor MacLaren
Eric Dolphy Out to Lunch Blue Note 1964
Being a Charles Mingus fanatic, I often ask the question, “Are you into Eric Dolphy?" To my appalled surprise, more often than not I get the response “Who?" That, my dear fellow jazzites, is totally unacceptable!
For those of the aforementioned group who have not been knocked down at the knees while Dolphy blows from the speakers, I'll testify. Before his untimely demise from ...
Continue ReadingEric Dolphy: This is Eric Dolphy
by Michael Davis
This oft-reissued set still makes an ideal stocking-stuffer for several reasons beyond Eric Dolphy's continuing iconic stature.
First off is its amazing diversity, a batch of material ranging from formative, definitive free-bop ensemble performances to free duets with then—emerging bass giant Richard Davis. Actually, many of these musicians, including Bobby Hutcherson, Woody Shaw and Sonny Simmons, were just beginning to be heard at this time and everyone's playing is as fresh as it would ever be.
Perhaps this ...
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