Eric Dolphy

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Essential Albums

  • Out to Lunch!
    Out to Lunch!

    Inimitable multi-reedist Eric Dolphy joined the Blue Note roster in time to make one of the label’s definitive recordings, ‘Out to Lunch!’, in February 1964. This was Dolphy’s first full album of original compositions, arguably his first wholly mature statement. But on June 29, the 36-year-old died of undiagnosed diabetes. ‘Out to Lunch!’ came out in August. Posthumous archival material would follow, but ‘Out to Lunch!’ stands as a capstone, a summation of everything the remarkable Dolphy was about during his short life. It helps to grasp the implications of the word “out” in the title: In jazz parlance, it connotes the left-of-center aesthetic of the avant-garde. “This is not music to roller skate by,” as A.B. Spellman wrote in the liner notes. “It is the kind of muscularly individualistic stuff that will not tolerate indifference….” Indeed, Dolphy’s jagged melodic themes; his pungent delivery on alto sax, bass clarinet and flute; his ambiguous tonalities and textures (brought out by Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, rather than a pianist); the unconventional rhythmic flow of bassist Richard Davis and drummer Tony Williams: These elements placed Dolphy in a league with Blue Note’s more experimental artists of the time—including pianist Andrew Hill, who recorded his classic Point of Departure almost exactly one month after ‘Out to Lunch!’ (and chose Dolphy, Davis and Williams for his band). The 19-year-old Williams, already a sensation with Miles Davis’ great quintet, recorded his highly abstract Blue Note debut, Life Time, the same month that ‘Out to Lunch!’ was released. Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, who had played on Dolphy’s Outward Bound back in 1960, solos adventurously on ‘Out to Lunch!’ but also enhances the structural rigour of Dolphy’s writing, bringing out harmonised parts and inner voices with tremendous clarity. For all its rough sandpaper edges, Dolphy’s music was highly meticulous, drawing on classical music as an influence. “Gazzelloni”, the album’s only flute feature, is named for the renowned Italian flutist. There are exquisite chamber-like moments in “Something Sweet, Something Tender”—the unison of bass clarinet and bowed bass in the final minute, for instance. Four years before ‘Out to Lunch!’, Richard Davis played alongside drummer Ed Blackwell on Dolphy’s At the Five Spot recordings. The difference between Blackwell and Williams, and the way that Davis responds to each of them, is fascinating to explore. Throughout, one can really hear how stimulated Williams was by Dolphy’s musical vision and these players in particular. He got what Dolphy was after and seemed to relish putting it into practice.

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About Eric Dolphy

Classically trained multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy shot like a comet across the outside-jazz firmament. Born in 1928, Dolphy was raised in Los Angeles, where he began studying saxophone and clarinet at age six. He made his first recordings as a saxophonist with bebop drummer Roy Porter in 1949 and returned to his hometown after a 1953 military discharge. In 1958, Dolphy moved to New York, where he took off on alto sax, bass clarinet, and flute in clubs like the Five Spot Café before making his debut as bandleader with Outward Bound in 1960. His idiosyncratic soloing style—an electrifying high-wire act of wild intervallic leaps, feral outbursts, and hyper-sophisticated chordal invention—can be heard on key recordings by Chico Hamilton, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, and Oliver Nelson. Although Dolphy produced an abundant discography, his finest recordings as bandleader, Iron Man and ‘Out To Lunch!’, were released posthumously following Dolphy’s untimely death from undiagnosed diabetes in June 1964.

HOMETOWN
Los Angeles, CA, United States
BORN
20 June 1928
GENRE
Jazz

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