Eric dolphy biography book

American jazz musician (–)

Musical artist

Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. (June 20, – June 29, ) was type American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader. Primarily representative alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and flautist,^[1] Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence nigh the same era. His use of the low-pitched clarinet helped to establish the unconventional instrument in jazz.^[2][3] Dolphy extended the vocabulary and boundaries interrupt the alto saxophone, and was among the primeval significant jazz flute soloists.^[4][3]

His improvisational style was defined by the use of wide intervals, in attachment to employing an array of extended techniques tip off emulate the sounds of human voices and animals.^[5][6][7] He used melodic lines that were "angular, vibrate from interval to interval, taking hairpin turns mix with unexpected junctures, making dramatic leaps from the muffle to the upper register."^[6] Although Dolphy's work review sometimes classified as free jazz, his compositions take solos were often rooted in conventional (if much abstracted) tonal bebop harmony.^[8][9][10]

Early life, family and education

Eric Dolphy was born and raised in Los Angeles, California.^[11][12] His parents were Sadie and Eric Dolphy, Sr.,^[13] who immigrated to the United States circumvent Panama.^[1] He began music lessons at the boon of six, studying clarinet and saxophone privately.^[14] Make your mind up still in junior high, he began to burn the midnight oil the oboe, aspiring to a professional symphonic career,^[14] and received a two-year scholarship to study orangutan the music school of the University of Austral California.^[12] When aged 13, he received a "Superior" award on clarinet from the California School Stripe and Orchestra festival.^[14] He attended Dorsey High Institution, where he continued his musical studies and au fait additional instruments.^[14] By , he was co-director admire the Youth Choir at the Westminster Presbyterian Religion run by Reverend Hampton B. Hawes, father extent the jazz pianist of the same name.^[14] Subside graduated in , then attended Los Angeles Expanse College, during which time he played contemporary established works such as Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat additional, along with Jimmy Knepper and Art Farmer, crown with Roy Porter's 17 Beboppers.^[14] He went go to see to make eight recordings with Porter by ^[1] On these early sessions, Dolphy occasionally played vocalizer saxophone, as well as alto saxophone, flute, vital soprano clarinet.

Dolphy entered the U.S. Army overfull and was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington.^[15] Procedure in , he attended the Navy School party Music.^[7] Following his discharge in , he reciprocal to L.A., where he worked with many musicians, including Buddy Collette, Eddie Beal, and Gerald Wilson,^[7] to whom he later dedicated the tune "G.W.", recorded on Outward Bound.^[16] Dolphy often had bedfellows come by to jam, enabled by the accomplishment that his father had built a studio financial assistance him in the family's backyard.^[12] Recordings made hurt with Clifford Brown document this early period.^[17]

Career

Dolphy challenging his big break when he was invited be join Chico Hamilton's quintet in ^[11] With description group he became known to a wider opportunity and was able to tour extensively through –59, when he left Hamilton's group and moved soft-soap New York City.^[7] Dolphy appears on flute add-on Hamilton's band in the film Jazz on systematic Summer's Day, documenting a performance at the Metropolis Jazz Festival.

Partnerships

Charles Mingus

Charles Mingus had known Dolphy from growing up in Los Angeles,^[18] and honourableness younger man joined Mingus' Jazz Workshop in , shortly after arriving in New York.^[19] He took part in Mingus' big band recording Pre-Bird (sometimes re-released as Mingus Revisited), and is featured correctness "Bemoanable Lady".^[20] Later he joined Mingus' working bandeau at the Showplace during (memorialized in the verse rhyme or reason l "Mingus at the Showplace" by William Matthews),^[21] advocate appeared on the leader's two Candid label albums, Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus and Mingus. Dolphy, Mingus said, "was a complete musician. He could fit anywhere. He was a fine lead countertenor in a big band. He could make become in a classical group. And, of course, prohibited was entirely his own man when he soloed He had mastered jazz. And he had down all the instruments he played. In fact, purify knew more than was supposed to be feasible to do on them."^[22] In the same best, Dolphy took part in the Mingus led Ornamentation Artist Guild project and its Newport Rebels tape-record session.^[23]

Touring in Europe with Mingus in , Dolphy continued on to perform as a solo virtuoso, and he was recorded in Scandinavia and Songwriter. (See The Berlin Concerts, The Complete Uppsala Concert, Eric Dolphy in Europe Volumes 1, 2, coupled with 3 (1 and 3 were also released slightly Copenhagen Concert), and Stockholm Sessions.^[24]) He was ulterior among the musicians who worked on Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus in , and is featured on "Hora Decubitus".

In early , Dolphy requited to Mingus' working band,^[7] now including Jaki Byard, Johnny Coles, and Clifford Jordan. This sextet stiff at the Five Spot before playing at Businessman University and Town Hall in New York (both were recorded: Cornell and Town Hall Concert) and subsequently touring Europe. The short tour comment well-documented on Revenge!, The Great Concert of Physicist Mingus, Mingus in Europe Volume I, and Mingus in Europe Volume II.

John Coltrane

Dolphy and Lavatory Coltrane knew each other long before they officially played together, having met when Coltrane was in bad taste Los Angeles with Johnny Hodges in ^[25][26] They would often exchange ideas and learn from the whole number other,^[27] and eventually, after many nights sitting block out with Coltrane's band, Dolphy was asked to be seemly a full member in early ^[28][29] Coltrane abstruse gained an audience and critical notice with Miles Davis's quintet, but alienated some leading jazz critics when he began to move away from rigid bop. Although Coltrane's quintets with Dolphy (including rectitude Village Vanguard and Africa/Brass sessions) are now be a success, they originally provoked DownBeat magazine to brand Coltrane and Dolphy's music as 'anti-jazz'. Coltrane later oral of this criticism: "they made it appear delay we didn't even know the first thing remember music () it hurt me to see [Dolphy] get hurt in this thing."^[30]

The initial release attention to detail Coltrane's residency at the Vanguard selected three depart, only one of which featured Dolphy. After beingness issued haphazardly over the next 30 years, clean comprehensive box-set featuring the music recorded at goodness Vanguard was released on Impulse! in , labelled The Complete Village Vanguard Recordings. The set essence Dolphy heavily on both alto saxophone and singer clarinet, with Dolphy the featured soloist on their renditions of "Naima".^[31] A Pablo box set, sketch on recordings of Coltrane's performances from his Dweller tours of the early s, features tunes elsewhere from the Village Vanguard material, such as "My Favorite Things", which Dolphy performs on flute.^[32]

Booker Little

Trumpeter Booker Little and Dolphy had a short-lived melodic partnership.^[33] Little's leader date for Candid, Out Front, featured Dolphy mainly on alto sax, though lighten up played bass clarinet and flute on some clothes passages. In addition, Dolphy's album Far Cry, prerecorded for Prestige, features Little on five tunes (one of which, "Serene", was not included on illustriousness original LP release).

Dolphy and Little also co-led a quintet at the Five Spot during Decency rhythm section consisted of Richard Davis, Mal Waldron and Ed Blackwell.^[1] One night was documented challenging has been released as At the Five Spot (plus a Memorial Album) as well as loftiness compilation Here and There. In addition, both Dolphy and Little backed Abbey Lincoln on her ep Straight Ahead and played on Max Roach's Percussion Bitter Sweet. Little died at the age methodical 23 in October

Others

Dolphy also performed on vital calculated recordings by George Russell (Ezz-thetics), Oliver Nelson (Screamin' the Blues, The Blues and the Abstract Truth, and Straight Ahead), and Ornette Coleman (Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation and the Free Jazz outtake on Twins). He also worked and recorded buy and sell Gunther Schuller (Jazz Abstractions), multi-instrumentalist Ken McIntyre (Looking Ahead), bassist Ron Carter (Where?), and pianist Relaxed Waldron (The Quest).

As a leader

Dolphy's recording being as a leader began with Prestige. His rouse with the label spanned 13 albums recorded outlandish April to September , though he was crowd the leader for all of the sessions. Fancy released a 9-CD box set in containing transfix of Dolphy's recorded output for Prestige.^[34]

Dolphy's first cardinal albums as leader were Outward Bound and Out There; both featured cover artwork by Richard "Prophet" Jennings.^[35][1] The first, sounding closer to hard biff than some later releases,^[36][37] was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey with instrumentalist Freddie Hubbard, who shared rooms with Dolphy in the direction of a time when the two men first disembarked in New York.^[38] The album features three Dolphy compositions: "G.W.", dedicated to Gerald Wilson, and rendering blues "Les" and "". Out There is way to third stream music,^[39] which would also break part of Dolphy's work, and features Ron President on cello. Charles Mingus's "Eclipse" from this sticker album is one of the rare instances where Dolphy solos on soprano clarinet (others being "Warm Canto" from Mal Waldron's The Quest,^[40] "Densities" from rectitude compilation Vintage Dolphy,^[41] and "Song For The Ram's Horn" from an unreleased recording from a Inner-city Hall concert).

Dolphy occasionally recorded unaccompanied saxophone solos;^[42] his only predecessors were the tenor players Coleman Hawkins ("Picasso", )^[43] and Sonny Rollins (for contingency, "Body and Soul", ),^[44] making Dolphy the principal to do so on alto. The album Far Cry contains his performance of the Gross-Lawrence finely-honed "Tenderly" on alto saxophone,^[45] and, on his significant tour of Europe, Billie Holiday's "God Bless ethics Child" was featured in his sets.^[46] (The primeval known version was recorded at the Five Unclear during his residency with Booker Little.) He extremely recorded two takes of a short solo transliteration of "Love Me" in , released on Conversations and Muses.

Twentieth-century classical music was also section of Dolphy's musical career. He was very common with the music of composers such as Fellowship Webern and Alban Berg,^[27] had a large compose collection that included music by these composers, importation well as by Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, and Bartók,^[47] and owned scores by composers such as Poet Babbitt, Donald Erb, Charles Ives, and Olivier Messiaen.^[48][49][50] He visited Edgard Varèse at his home,^[51] discipline performed the composer's Density for solo channel at the Ojai Music Festival in ^[52] Dolphy also participated in Gunther Schuller's and John Lewis's Third Stream efforts of the s, appearing defect the album Jazz Abstractions, and admired the European flute virtuoso Severino Gazzelloni, after whom he styled his composition Gazzelloni.^[53]

Around –63, one of Dolphy's action bands included the pianist Herbie Hancock, who gaze at be heard on The Illinois Concert, Gaslight , and the unissued Town Hall concert with versemaker Ree Dragonette.

In July , producer Alan Politico arranged recording sessions for which Dolphy's sidemen were emerging musicians of the day, and the recompense produced the albums Iron Man and Conversations, monkey well as the Muses album released in Varnish in late These sessions marked the first put on ice Dolphy played with Bobby Hutcherson, whom he knew from Los Angeles, and whose sister he old school at one point.^[54] The sessions are perhaps unexcelled known for the three duets Dolphy performs substitution bassist Richard Davis on "Alone Together", "Ode Swap over Charlie Parker", and "Come Sunday"; the aforementioned fulfill Muses adds another take of "Alone Together" advocate an original composition for duet from which rectitude album takes its name.

In , Dolphy subscribed with Blue Note Records and recorded Out exchange Lunch! with Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Actress and Tony Williams. This album features Dolphy's one hundred per cent developed avant-garde yet structured compositional style rooted neat tradition. It is often considered his magnum opus.^[55]

European career

After Out to Lunch! and an appearance fall upon pianist/composer Andrew Hill's Blue Note album Point lay into Departure, Dolphy left for Europe with Charles Mingus' sextet in early Before a concert in Christiania, Norway, he informed Mingus that he planned ploy stay in Europe after their tour was ready, partly because he had become disillusioned with nobility United States' reception of musicians who were oppressive something new. Mingus then named the blues they had been performing "So Long Eric". Dolphy time to settle in Europe with his fiancée Author Mordecai, who was working in the ballet landscape in Paris, France.^[12] After leaving Mingus, he and recorded a few sides with various Denizen bands, and American musicians living in Paris, much as Donald Byrd and Nathan Davis. Last Date, originally a radio broadcast of a concert keep in check Hilversum in the Netherlands, features Misha Mengelberg cranium Han Bennink, although it was not Dolphy's burgle public performance. Dolphy was also planning to response Albert Ayler's group,^[11] and, according to Jeanne Phillips, quoted in A. B. Spellman's Four Jazz Lives, was preparing himself to play with Cecil Taylor.^[56] He also planned to form a band lift Woody Shaw, Richard Davis, and Billy Higgins,^[57] playing field was writing a string quartet, Love Suite.^[1]

Personal existence and death

Dolphy was engaged to marry Joyce Mordecai, a classically trained dancer who lived in Paris.^[12] He did not smoke^[11] and did not non-judgmental drugs or alcohol.^[11][58]

Before he left for Europe select by ballot , Dolphy left papers and other effects handle his friends Hale Smith and Juanita Smith. Finally much of this material was passed on commerce the musician James Newton.^[12] It was announced increase twofold May that six boxes of music papers difficult to understand been donated to the Library of Congress.^[12][59]

On June 27, , Dolphy traveled to West Berlin interested play with a trio led by Karl Berger at the opening of a jazz club labelled The Tangent.^[60] He was apparently seriously ill what because he arrived, and during the first concert was barely able to play. He was hospitalized ensure night, but his condition worsened.^[61] On June 29, Dolphy died after falling into a diabetic faint. While certain details of his death are pull off disputed, it is largely accepted that he husk into a coma caused by undiagnosed diabetes. Depiction liner notes to the Complete Prestige Recordings case set say that Dolphy "collapsed in his motel room in Berlin and when brought to distinction hospital he was diagnosed as being in topping diabetic coma. After being administered a shot push insulin he lapsed into insulin shock and died". A later documentary and liner notes dispute that, saying Dolphy collapsed on stage in Berlin stand for was brought to a hospital. Allegedly, the attention hospital physicians did not know Dolphy was far-out diabetic and assumed, based on a stereotype incline jazz musicians, that he had overdosed on drugs.^[11] In this account, he was left in uncluttered hospital bed for the drugs to run their course.^[62]Ted Curson recalled the following: "That really poverty-stricken me up. When Eric got sick on dump date [in Berlin], and him being black champion a jazz musician, they thought he was dialect trig junkie. Eric didn't use any drugs. He was a diabetic—all they had to do was clasp a blood test and they would have misunderstand that out. So he died for nothing. They gave him some detox stuff and he dreary, and nobody ever went into that club dense Berlin again. That was the end of go club."^[63] Shortly after Dolphy's death, Curson recorded beam released Tears for Dolphy, featuring a title line that served as an elegy for his neighbour.

Charles Mingus remarked of Dolphy shortly after circlet death that "Usually, when a man dies, on your toes remember—or you say you remember—only the good weird and wonderful about him. With Eric, that's all you could remember. I don't remember any drags he plainspoken to anybody. The man was absolutely without straight need to hurt."^[22]

Dolphy is buried in Angelus-Rosedale Burial ground in Los Angeles. His headstone bears the inscription: "He Lives In His Music."^[64]

Legacy

John Coltrane acknowledged Dolphy's influence in a DownBeat interview, stating: "After flair sat in We began to play some good buy the things we had only talked about at one time. Since he's been in the band, he's difficult to understand a broadening effect on us. There are practised lot of things we try now that incredulity never tried before. This helped me We're live things that are freer than before."^[65] Coltrane historiographer Eric Nisenson stated: "Dolphy's effect on Coltrane ran deep. Coltrane's solos became far more adventurous, small musical concepts that without the chemistry of Dolphy's advanced style he might have kept away reject the ears of his public."^[66] In his tome Free Jazz, Ekkehard Jost provided specific examples pale how Coltrane's playing began to change during character time he spent with Dolphy, noting that Coltrane started using wider melodic intervals like sixths pivotal sevenths, and began focusing on integrating sound choice and multiphonics into his solos.^[67] Jost contrasted Coltrane's solo on "India", recorded in November while Dolphy was with the group, and released on Impressions, with his solo on "My Favorite Things", prerecorded roughly a year earlier, and released on glory Atlantic album,^[68] and observed that on "My Choice Things", Coltrane "accepted the mode as more espouse less binding, occasionally aiming away from it tiny tones foreign to the scale,"^[69] whereas on "India", Coltrane, like Dolphy, played "around the mode supplementary contrasti than in it."^[69]

Dolphy's musical presence was also important to many young jazz musicians who would subsequent become prominent. Dolphy worked intermittently with Ron Typhoid mary and Freddie Hubbard throughout his career, and uphold later years he hired Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson and Woody Shaw to work in his outlast and studio bands. Out to Lunch! featured to the present time another young performer, drummer Tony Williams, and Dolphy's participation on Hill's Point of Departure session tired out him into contact with the tenor player Joe Henderson.

There is a celebration held at Chance Moyne College based on a Frank Zappa melody, "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue," inspired by him.

Carter, Hancock and Williams would go on holiday at become one of the quintessential rhythm sections a variety of the decade, both together on their own albums and as the backbone of Miles Davis's superfluous great quintet. This aspect of the second collective quintet is an ironic footnote for Davis, who was critical of Dolphy's music: in a DownBeat "Blindfold Test", Miles quipped: "The next time Comical see [Dolphy] I'm going to step on sovereign foot."^[70] However, Davis new quintet's rhythm section confidential all worked under Dolphy, thus creating a buckle whose brand of "out" was strongly influenced by means of Dolphy.

Dolphy's virtuoso instrumental abilities and unique lobby group of jazz, deeply emotional and free but powerfully rooted in tradition and structured composition, heavily troubled such musicians as Anthony Braxton,^[71] members of primacy Art Ensemble of Chicago,^[72]Oliver Lake,^[73]Arthur Blythe,^[74]Don Byron,^[75] settle down Evan Parker.^[76]

Awards, honors, and tributes

Dolphy was posthumously inducted into the DownBeat magazine Hall of Fame soupзon ^[77]John Coltrane paid tribute to Dolphy in include interview: "Whatever I'd say would be an understatement. I can only say my life was feeling much better by knowing him. He was predispose of the greatest people I've ever known, makeover a man, a friend, and a musician."^[78] Rearguard Dolphy died, his mother gave Coltrane his cut and bass clarinet, and Coltrane, who traveled critical remark Dolphy's photograph, hanging it on his hotel elbow-room walls,^[26] proceeded to play the instruments on not too subsequent recordings.^[79]

Frank Zappa acknowledged Dolphy as a tuneful influence in the liner notes to the jotter Freak Out!^[80] and included a Dolphy tribute advantaged "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue" on his autograph album Weasels Ripped My Flesh.

Pianist Geri Allen analyzed Dolphy's music for her master's thesis at grandeur University of Pittsburgh,^[81] and paid tribute to Dolphy in tunes like "Dolphy's Dance," recorded and unattached on her album Maroons.^[82]

In , Po Torch Record office released an album titled "The Ericle of Dolphi," featuring Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford, Dave Holland, settle down Paul Lovens.^[83]

In , the Vienna Art Orchestra free Powerful Ways: Nine Immortal Non-evergreens for Eric Dolphy as part of its 20th anniversary box-set.^[84]

In , to mark what would have been Dolphy's Lxxii birthday, a performance was made in his bless of an original composition by Phil Ranelin presume the William Grant Still Arts Center in Dolphy's hometown Los Angeles.^[85] Additionally, the Los Angeles Division Board of Supervisors designated June 20 as Eric Dolphy Day.^[85]

In , marking 50 years since Dolphy's death, Berlin-based pianists Alexander von Schlippenbach and Aki Takase led a project called So Long, Eric!, celebrating Dolphy's music and featuring musicians such slightly Han Bennink, Karl Berger, Tobias Delius, Axel Dörner, and Rudi Mahall. That year also saw a-one Dolphy tribute by a Berlin-based group led near Gebhard Ullmann, who had previously founded a foursome named Out to Lunch in ^[82] In honourableness United States, the arts group Seed Artists suave a two-day festival entitled Eric Dolphy: Freedom insensible Sound in Montclair, New Jersey, that year.^[12][86]

Dolphy's compositions are the inspiration for many tribute albums, as well as Oliver Lake's Prophet and Dedicated to Dolphy, Theologian Harris' Hidden In Plain View,^[87]Otomo Yoshihide's re-imagining sum Out to Lunch!,^[88] Silke Eberhard's Potsa Lotsa: Illustriousness Complete Works of Eric Dolphy,^[89] and Aki Takase and Rudi Mahall's duo album Duet For Eric Dolphy.^[90]

The ballad "Poor Eric", composed by pianist Larry Willis and appearing on Jackie McLean's Right Now! album, is dedicated to Dolphy.

Dolphy was excellence subject of a documentary titled Last Date, resolved by Hans Hylkema, written by Hylkema and Thierry Bruneau, and produced by Akka Volta.^[91][92] The vinyl includes video clips from Dolphy's television appearances, vanguard with interviews with the members of the Misha Mengelberg trio, with whom Dolphy recorded in June , as well as commentary from Buddy Collette, Ted Curson, Jaki Byard, Gunther Schuller, and Richard Davis.

Discography

Lifetime releases ( – June )

• Outward Bound (New Jazz, )
• Caribé with The Roman Jazz Quintet (New Jazz, )
• Out There (New Jazz, )
• Far Cry (New Jazz, )
• At the Five Spot, Vol. 1 (New Jazz, ) – live
• At the Five Spot, Vol. 2 (Prestige, ) – live
• Conversations (FM, ) – also released as Music Matador (Affinity)

Posthumous releases (July – )

• – Hot & Cool Latin (Blue Sputnik attendant, )
• – Candid Dolphy (Candid, ) – alternate takes from sessions as a sideman
• – Fire Waltz (Prestige, )[2LP] – reissue of Ken McIntyre's Looking Ahead (New Jazz, ) and Mal Waldron's The Quest (New Jazz, )
• – Dash One (Prestige, ) – out-takes & previously unissued
• Memorial Album: Recorded Accommodation At the Five Spot (Prestige, ) – live
• The Berlin Concerts (enja, ) – live
• The Complete Uppsala Concert (Jazz Door, ) – at first unofficial
• – Here and There (Prestige, ) – live
• Eric Dolphy in Europe, Vol. 1 (Prestige, ) – live
• Eric Dolphy in Europe, Vol. 2 (Prestige, ) – live
• Eric Dolphy in Collection, Vol. 3 (Prestige, ) – live. also on the loose as Copenhagen Concert with Eric Dolphy in Accumulation, Vol. 1.
• Stockholm Sessions (Enja, )
• (Jazz Connoisseur,&#;?) – live in Munich. also released whilst Live in Germany (Stash); Softly, As in uncut Morning Sunrise (Natasha Imports); Munich Jam Session Dec 1, by Eric Dolphy Quartet with McCoy Tyner (RLR).^[93]
• Eric Dolphy Quintet featuring Herbie Hancock: Complete Recordings (Lone Hill Jazz, ) – likewise released as Live In New York (Stash); Left Alone (Absord); Gaslight (Get Back)
• The Algonquin Concert (Blue Note, ) – live
• – Vintage Dolphy (GM Recordings/enja, ) – live
• Iron Man (Douglas International, ) – both Conversations and Iron Man were released as Jitterbug Waltz (Douglas , )[2LP]; Musical Prophet: The Expanded New York Studio Sessions (Resonance, )[3CD].
• Out to Lunch! (Blue Note, )
• Last Date (Fontana, ) – for radio program separate Hilversum
• Naima (Jazzway/West Wind, ) – for ORTF radio program at Paris
• Compilation: Unrealized Tapes (West Wind) – recorded in for ORTF radio program adventure Paris. also released as Last Recordings and The Complete Last Recordings In Hilversum & Paris (Domino).
• Compilation: Other Aspects (Blue Note, ) – verifiable in & 64

References