Eric Dolphy

All Music Guide:

Eric Dolphy was a true original with his own distinctive styles on alto, flute, and bass clarinet. His music fell into the "avant-garde" category yet he did not discard chordal improvisation altogether (although the relationship of his notes to the chords was often pretty abstract). While most of the other "free jazz" players sounded very serious in their playing, Dolphy's solos often came across as ecstatic and exuberant. His improvisations utilized very wide intervals, a variety of nonmusical speechlike sounds, and its own logic. Although the alto was his main axe, Dolphy was the first flutist to move beyond bop (influencing James Newton) and he largely introduced the bass clarinet to jazz as a solo instrument. He was also one of the first (after Coleman Hawkins) to record unaccompanied horn solos, preceding Anthony Braxton by five years.

Eric Dolphy first recorded while with Roy Porter & His Orchestra (1948-1950) in Los Angeles, he was in the Army for two years, and he then played in obscurity in L.A. until he joined the Chico Hamilton Quintet in 1958. In 1959 he settled in New York and was soon a member of the Charles Mingus Quartet. By 1960 Dolphy was recording regularly as a leader for Prestige and gaining attention for his work with Mingus, but throughout his short career he had difficulty gaining steady work due to his very advanced style. Dolphy recorded quite a bit during 1960-1961, including three albums cut at the Five Spot while with trumpeter Booker Little, Free Jazz with Ornette Coleman, sessions with Max Roach, and some European dates.

Late in 1961 Dolphy was part of the John Coltrane Quintet; their engagement at the Village Vanguard caused conservative critics to try to smear them as playing "anti-jazz" due to the lengthy and very free solos. During 1962-1963 Dolphy played third stream music with Gunther Schuller and Orchestra U.S.A., and gigged all too rarely with his own group. In 1964 he recorded his classic Out to Lunch for Blue Note and traveled to Europe with the Charles Mingus Sextet (which was arguably the bassist's most exciting band, as shown on The Great Concert of Charles Mingus). After he chose to stay in Europe, Dolphy had a few gigs but then died suddenly from a diabetic coma at the age of 36, a major loss.

Virtually all of Eric Dolphy's recordings are in print, including a nine-CD box set of all of his Prestige sessions. In addition, Dolphy can be seen on film with John Coltrane (included on The Coltrane Legacy) and with Mingus from 1964 on a video released by Shanachie.

Wikipedia:

Eric Allan Dolphy, Jr. (June 20, 1928 – June 29, 1964) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, flutist, and bass clarinetist. On a few occasions he also played the clarinet, piccolo, and baritone saxophone. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the 1960s. He was also the first important bass clarinet soloist in jazz, and among the earliest significant flute soloists. His improvisational style was characterized by the use of wide intervals, in addition to using an array of extended techniques to reproduce human- and animal-like effects which almost literally made his instruments speak. Although Dolphy's work is sometimes classified as free jazz, his compositions and solos were often rooted in conventional (if highly abstracted) tonal bebop harmony and melodic lines that suggest the influences of modern classical composers Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky.

Biography

Early life

Dolphy was born in Los Angeles to Eric Allan Dolphy, Sr. and Sadie Dolphy, who emigrated to the United States from Panama. He picked up the clarinet at the age of six, and in less than a month was playing in the school's orchestra. He also learned the oboe in junior high school, though he never recorded on the instrument. Hearing Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins led him towards jazz and he picked up the saxophone and flute while in high school. His father built a studio for Eric in their backyard, and Eric often had friends come by to jam; recordings with Clifford Brown from this studio document this early time. He performed locally for several years, most notably as a member of bebop big bands led by Gerald Wilson and Roy Porter. He was educated at Los Angeles City College and also directed the orchestra there. On early recordings, he occasionally played baritone saxophone, as well as alto saxophone, flute and soprano clarinet. Dolphy finally had his big break as a member of Chico Hamilton's quintet. With the group he became known to a wider audience and was able to tour extensively through 1959, when he parted ways with Hamilton and moved to New York City. Dolphy appears with the Hamilton quintet in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day playing flute.

Early partnerships

Charles Mingus had known Eric from growing up in Los Angeles, and Dolphy joined his band shortly after arriving in New York. He took part in Mingus' big band recording "Pre-Bird", and is featured on "Bemoanable Lady". Later he joined Mingus' working band which also included Dannie Richmond and Ted Curson. They worked at the Showplace during 1960 and recorded the classics "Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus" and "Mingus at Antibes" (the latter adding Booker Ervin on all tracks except "What Love" and Bud Powell for "I'll Remember April"). Dolphy, Mingus said, "was a complete musician. He could fit anywhere. He was a fine lead alto in a big band. He could make it in a classical group. And, of course, he was entirely his own man when he soloed... He had mastered jazz. And he had mastered all the instruments he played. In fact, he knew more than was supposed to be possible to do on them" (Last Date liner notes Limelight). During this time Dolphy also recorded a large ensemble session at the Candid label and took part in the Newport Rebels session. Dolphy left Mingus' band in 1961 and went to Europe for a few months, where he recorded in Scandinavia and Berlin, though he would record with Mingus throughout his career. He participated in the big band session for "Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus" in 1963 and is featured on "Hora Decubitus". In early 1964 he joined Mingus' working band again, along with Jaki Byard, Johnny Coles, and Clifford Jordan. This sextet, widely regarded as one of the finest groups ever put together, worked at the Five Spot before playing shows at Cornell University and Town Hall in New York and touring Europe. Many recordings have been made of their tour, which although short, is well-documented.

Dolphy and John Coltrane knew each other long before they played together, having met when Coltrane was in LA with Miles Davis. They would often exchange ideas and learn from each other, and eventually, after many nights sitting in with Coltrane's band, Dolphy was asked to become a full member. Coltrane had gained an audience and critical notice with Miles Davis's quintet, but alienated many purists when he began to move away from congenital hard bop. Although Coltrane's quintets with Dolphy (including the Village Vanguard and Africa/Brass sessions) are now legendary, they originally provoked Down Beat magazine to brand Coltrane and Dolphy's music as 'anti-jazz'. Coltrane later said of this criticism: "they made it appear that we didn't even know the first thing about music (...) it hurt me to see [Dolphy] get hurt in this thing." The initial release of Coltrane's stay at the Vanguard selected three tracks, only one of which featured Dolphy. After being issued haphazardly over the next 30 years, a comprehensive box set featuring all of the recorded music from the Vanguard was released by Impulse! in 1997: The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings. The set heavily features Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, and Coltrane made Dolphy the featured soloist on their renditions of "Naima". A later Pablo box set from Coltrane's European tours of the early 1960s collected more recordings which feature tunes not played at the Village Vanguard, such as "My Favorite Things" which Dolphy performs on flute.

Booker Little was a trumpet player who tragically died at 23 years old of uremia, although for a short time he and Dolphy had a very fruitful musical partnership that produced some of their finest music. Booker's leader date for Candid, "Out Front" featured Dolphy mainly on alto, though he played bass clarinet and flute on ensemble passages. "Far Cry" recorded for Prestige just after Eric had finished recording "Free Jazz" with Ornette Coleman, features Booker on Jaki Byard's "Mrs. Parker Of K.C." and "Ode To Charlie Parker" and Dolphy's "Far Cry" and "Miss Ann". Dolphy and Little also co-led a quintet at the Five Spot during 1961 that created some of jazz's most celebrated recordings. The rhythm section consisted of Richard Davis, Mal Waldron and Ed Blackwell. One night was documented and has been released on three volumes of "At the Five Spot" as well as the compilation "Here and There". Both Dolphy and Little backed Abbey Lincoln on her album "Straight Ahead", and played on Max Roach's "Percussion Bitter Sweet" as well as the horn section on John Coltrane's "Africa/Brass" sessions.

During this period, Dolphy also played in a number of challenging settings, notably in key recordings by Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation), arranger Oliver Nelson ("Screamin' the Blues", The Blues and the Abstract Truth and Straight Ahead) and George Russell (Ezz-thetics). He also worked with Gunther Schuller, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Mal Waldron, multi-instrumentalist Ken McIntyre, and bassist Ron Carter, among others.

As a leader

Dolphy's recording career as a leader began with the Prestige label. His association with the label spanned across 13 albums recorded from April 1960 to September 1961, though he was not the leader for all of the sessions. Fantasy eventually released a 9-CD box set containing all of Dolphy's recorded output for Prestige.

Dolphy's first two albums as leader were Outward Bound and Out There; both featured artwork by Richard "Prophet" Jennings. The first, sounding closer to hard bop than some later releases, was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey with then newcomer trumpet player Freddie Hubbard. The album features three Dolphy compositions: "G.W.", dedicated to Gerwald Wilson, and the blues "Les" and "245". Out There is closer to "third stream" music which would also form part of Dolphy's legacy, and features Ron Carter on cello. Charles Mingus' "Eclipse" from this album is one of the rare instances where Dolphy solos on soprano clarinet (others being "Warm Canto" from Mal Waldron's "The Quest" and "Densities" from the compilation "Vintage Dolphy".

Far Cry was also recorded for Prestige in 1960 and represented his first pairing with trumpeter Booker Little, a like-minded spirit with whom he would make a set of legendary live recordings at the Five Spot in New York before Little's death at the age of 23. The album includes his compositions "Far Cry" (which is the same line as "Out There", rearranged for two horns) and "Miss Ann".

Dolphy recorded several unaccompanied cuts on saxophone, which at the time had been done only by Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins. The album Far Cry contains his famous performance of the Gross-Lawrence standard "Tenderly" on alto saxophone, and his subsequent tour of Europe quickly set high standards for solo performance with his exhilarating bass clarinet renditions of Billie Holiday's "God Bless The Child" (an early version of this tune was recorded at the Five Spot during his residency with Booker Little). Numerous recordings were made of live performances by Dolphy on this tour, in Copenhagen, Uppsala and other cities, and these have been issued by many sometimes dubious record labels, drifting in and out of print, though many of not all have been remastered and are readily available. He also recorded a short solo rendition of "Love Me" on "Conversations".

20th century classical music also played a significant role in Dolphy's musical career. He performed Edgard Varèse's Density 21.5 for solo flute at the Ojai Music Festival in 1962 and participated in Gunther Schuller's Third Stream efforts of the 1960s.

Around 1962-63, one of Dolphy's working band included the young pianist Herbie Hancock, who can be heard on "The Illinois Concert" and "Gaslight 1962".

In July 1963, Dolphy and producer Alan Douglas arranged recording sessions for which his sidemen were among the leading emerging musicians of the day, and the results produced his Iron Man and Conversations LPs. These sessions were the marked the first time Dolphy played with Bobby Hutcherson, whom he knew from Los Angeles. The sessions are perhaps most famous for the three duets Dolphy performs with Richard Davis on "Alone Together", "Ode To Charlie Parker", and "Come Sunday". They also include a rendition of Fats Waller's classic "Jitterbug Waltz", Sonny Simmons' "Music Matador", and Dolphy's "Iron Man", "Mandrake" (a.k.a. "The Madrig Speaks, The Panther Walks"), and "Burning Spear" (a.k.a. "Half-Note Triplets").

In 1964, Dolphy signed with Blue Note Records and recorded Out to Lunch! with Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis and Tony Williams. This album features Dolphy's fully developed avant-garde yet highly structured compositional style rooted in tradition. Out to Lunch!, his last major studio recording, is often considered his magnum opus.

Final months

After Out to Lunch! and an appearance as a sideman on Andrew Hill's classic Point of Departure, Dolphy left to tour Europe with Charles Mingus' sextet in early 1964. Before a concert in Oslo, he informed Mingus that he planned to stay in Europe after their tour was finished. Mingus then named the blues they had been performing on the tour, "So Long Eric". He intended to settle in Europe with his fiancée, who was working on the ballet scene in Paris. After leaving Mingus, he performed and recorded a few sides with various European bands, and American musicians living in Paris, such as Donald Byrd and Nathan Davis. The famous Last Date with Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink was recorded in Hilversum, Holland, though it was not actually Dolphy's last concert. Dolphy was also preparing to join Albert Ayler for a recording, and spoke of his desire of playing with Cecil Taylor. He also planned to form a band with Woody Shaw and Billy Higgins, and was writing a string quartet titled "Love Suite".

Eric Dolphy died accidentally in Berlin on June 28, 1964. Some details of his passing are still disputed, but it is accepted that he died of a coma brought on by an undiagnosed diabetic condition. The liner notes to the Complete Prestige Recordings boxset say that Dolphy "collapsed in his hotel room in Berlin and when brought to the hospital he was diagnosed as being in a diabetic coma. After being administered a shot of insulin (apparently a type stronger than what was then available in the US) he lapsed into insulin shock and died." A later documentary and liner note disputes this, saying Dolphy collapsed on stage in Berlin and was brought to a hospital. The attending hospital physicians had no idea that Dolphy was a diabetic and decided on a stereotypical view of jazz musicians related to substance abuse, that he had overdosed on drugs. He was left in a hospital bed for the drugs to run their course.

Ted Curson remembers, "That really broke me up. When Eric got sick on that date [In Berlin], and him being black and a jazz musician, they thought he was a junkie. Eric didn't use any drugs. He was a diabetic - all they had to do was take a blood test and they would have found that out. So he died for nothing. They gave him some detox stuff and he died, and nobody ever went into that club in Berlin again. That was the end of that club".

Charles Mingus said, "Usually, when a man dies, you remember-or you say you remember-only the good things about him. With Eric, that's all you could remember. I don't remember any drags he did to anybody. The man was absolutely without a need to hurt".

Dolphy was posthumously inducted into the Down Beat magazine Hall of Fame in 1964. Coltrane paid tribute to Dolphy in an interview: "Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was made much better by knowing him. He was one of the greatest people I've ever known, as a man, a friend, and a musician." Dolphy's mother, Sadie, who had fond memories of her son practicing in the studio by her house, gave instruments that Dolphy had bought in France but never played to Coltrane, who subsequently played the flute and bass clarinet on several albums before his own death in 1967. Dolphy was engaged to be married to Joyce Mordecai, a classically-trained dancer.

Influence

Dolphy's musical presence was hugely influential to a who's who of young jazz musicians who would become legends in their own right. Dolphy worked intermittently with Ron Carter and Freddie Hubbard throughout his career, and in later years he hired Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson and Woody Shaw to work in his live and studio bands. Out to Lunch! featured yet another young lion who had just begun working with Dolphy in drummer Tony Williams, just as his participation on the Point of Departure session brought his influence into contact with up and coming tenor man Joe Henderson.

Carter, Hancock and Williams would go on to become one of the quintessential rhythm sections of the decade, both together on their own albums and as the backbone of the second great quintet of Miles Davis. This part of the second great quintet is an ironic footnote for Davis, who was not fond of Dolphy's music (in a 1964 Down Beat Blindfold Test, Miles famously quipped, "The next time I see [Dolphy] I'm going to step on his foot.") yet absorbed a rhythm section who had all worked under Dolphy and created a band whose brand of "out" was unsurprisingly very similar to Dolphy's.

Dolphy's virtuoso instrumental abilities and unique style of jazz, deeply emotional and free but strongly rooted in tradition and structured composition, heavily influenced such musicians as Anthony Braxton, members of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, Arthur Blythe, Don Byron and many others. Dolphy's compositions are the inspiration for many tribute albums, such as Oliver Lake's "Prophet" and "Dedicated to Dolphy", Jerome Harris' "Hidden In Plain View", and Ōtomo Yoshihide's re-imagining of "Out to Lunch".

In addition, his work with jazz and rock producer Alan Douglas allowed Dolphy's style to posthumously spread to musicians in the jazz fusion and rock environments, most notably with artists John McLaughlin and Jimi Hendrix. Frank Zappa, a highly influential composer who drew his inspiration from a variety of musical styles and idioms, paid tribute to Dolphy in the instrumental "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue" (on the 1970 album Weasels Ripped My Flesh) as well as listing Dolphy as an influence on the liner notes for the Mothers' first LP, "Freak Out!".