Best Known As: The way-out reed man who recorded Out to Lunch
Name at birth: Eric Allan Dolphy, Jr.
Eric Dolphy was a multi-instrumentalist and composer who left his mark on jazz music through a series of recordings in the early 1960s, including his 1964 masterpiece, Out To Lunch. A classically trained clarinetist from Los Angeles, he first gained national attention in 1958, playing with Chico Hamilton. Dolphy moved to New York in late 1959, where he became known as a virtuoso on alto sax, bass clarinet and flute, playing bop and free jazz with luminaries such as John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Ornette Coleman. As a band leader, Dolphy recorded some of his best known work in 1960 and 1961, including Outward Bound and Out There, and as a sideman he toured with Mingus and Coltrane, and played with Freddie Hubbard, Booker Little and Max Roach. During his career he got just as much criticism as praise for music that pushed the boundaries of chords and structure but maintained a tonal purity. His most famous recordings include Live at the Five Spot (1961), Town Hall Concert (1962, with Mingus), and Olé Coltrane (1961, with Coltrane). Dolphy died in Berlin while on tour, from complications due to undiagnosed diabetes. He was 36 years old.
Born Eric Allan Dolphy, Jr. on June 20, 1928, in Los Angeles, CA; died on June 29, 1964, in Berlin, Germany. Education: Studied music at Los Angeles City College and at the U.S. Naval School of Music in Washington, D.C.
Recorded with Roy Porter’s band, c. 1948-50; enlisted in the Army, c. 1950; attended the U.S. Naval School of Music, c. 1952; performed with various groups in Los Angeles, c. 1953-58; recorded with Chico Hamilton’s group, c. 1958-59; joined Charles Mingus’s band, December 1959; led first three recording sessions, Outward Bound, Out There, and Far Cry, 1960; recorded Free Jazz with Ornette Coleman, 1960; freelanced in New York City, c. 1960-61; recorded Olé and Africa/Brass with John Coltrane, 1961; codirected a group with Booker Little at the Five Spot Café in New York City, July 1961; toured Europe and led various pickup groups, August-September 1961; recorded with Coltrane’s group at the Village Vanguard in New York City, November 1961; toured Europe with Coltrane’s group, late 1961; freelanced in New York City, c. 1962-63; led recording sessions for Out to Lunch, 1964; joined Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop for European tour, April 1964; toured Europe and led various pickup groups, May-June 1964.
Multi-instrumentalist, composer
Eric Dolphy, one of the most creative instrumentalists in jazz, also had one of the most distinctive and exciting styles ever recorded. His innovative play on alto saxophone extended into dimensions far beyond those reached by such influential predecessors as Charlie "Yardbird" Parker. Dolphy’s volcanic improvisations are characterized by jagged, twisting, leaping series of notes. His hard, clear, unique sound could alternate between warmth and coldness, yet was often surprising and always inspired. Dolphy had difficulty obtaining the opportunity to lead his own well-rehearsed groups within the immediate post-bop period of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Consequently, the majority of his recorded work is as a sideman with such notables as Chico Hamilton, Charles Mingus, and John Coltrane. Yet Dolphy’s intense, passionate work expanded jazz artists’ capacity for expression and remains very influential. Though most often recorded on alto saxophone, Dolphy was the first flutist to take the instrument beyond bop conventions, and he also legitimized the clarinet and bass clarinet as solo instruments in jazz.
Born on June 20, 1928, in Los Angeles, California, Dolphy was the only child of parents of West Indian
descent. While growing up in central Los Angeles, he frequently accompanied his mother to the People’s Independent Church of Christ to attend her choir recitals, where he heard performances such as Handel’s Messiah. He eventually became a choir member himself and taught Sunday school there and at the Westminster Presbyterian Church where the father of jazz pianist Hampton Hawes was pastor.
Talented Young Musician By the first grade, Dolphy was playing the clarinet. He joined a school band at age eight and began studying the oboe while in junior high. In addition to his school lessons, Dolphy also had private music teachers, and he showed great aptitude on clarinet at a young age. He was awarded a certificate for his abilities on that instrument during a California school band festival at age 13. Dolphy picked up the alto saxophone while in junior high and learned by imitating the solos he heard on jazz records and by playing with fellow students, including Hawes. Among Dolphy’s early influences were Charlie Parker and the sounds of nature. While in his teens, Dolphy would imitate the sounds of birds with his instrument while practicing in his backyard.
An incessant practicer, Dolphy’s parents converted their garage into a soundproof studio so he could practice by himself or play with groups. After graduating from high school he studied music for a time at Los Angeles City College. When he was 20, he became the lead alto player in a group called the 17 Beboppers headed by Roy Porter, a former drummer. Dolphy first recorded with this band late that year and can be heard in a brief alto solo on "Moods at Dusk."
Upon the breakup of Porter’s band in 1950, Dolphy enlisted in the Army and was stationed for two years at Fort Lewis, Washington; he later attended the U.S. Naval School of Music in Washington, D.C. After returning home in 1953 he gigged around the Los Angles area, where he met such jazz luminaries as Max Roach, Clifford Brown, John Coltrane, and Ornette Coleman. From 1956-57, he led his own group at the Club Oasis.
Received National Attention Dolphy first received national attention in 1958 when he joined a pianoless quartet led by drummer Chico Hamilton. This group attempted to fuse classical music with jazz, and played tightly arranged popular songs as well as straightforward jazz. Dolphy still had opportunities to improvise within this context, as shown in the film Jazz on a Summer’s Day, recorded at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival. Hamilton’s group disbanded in November of 1959, and Dolphy settled in New York, where he began working at Minton’s in Harlem. That December, he joined Charles Mingus’s band, which had an extended engagement in Greenwich Village.
In April of 1960, Dolphy led his first recording date, titled Outward Bound, which also featured young trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. This sparked an astonishing period of creativity for Dolphy, who through late 1961 would participate in at least 16 recording sessions. His improvisational development through this period is quite apparent. As Steve Holtje remarked in Music-Hound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide: "It’s possible over that short span to hear [Dolphy] develop in leaps and bounds, going from a good player with interesting compositional ideas that occasionally receive slight awkward execution to a master of his instruments whose every move is fluid and organic."
During this period, Dolphy led two additional recording sessions—Out There, which, like Hamilton’s group, did not use piano, and Far Cry, which marks the beginning of his association with trumpeter Booker Little. Dolphy was also in great demand as a sideman at this time. Among his many recording dates were sessions with Ken Mclntyre, Oliver Nelson, Mal Waldron, Ron Carter, Max Roach, George Russell, the Latin Jazz Quintet, and the Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis Big Band. He also appeared on Ornette Coleman’s 1960 release Free Jazz, a double-quartet session and seminal avantgarde recording. In the spring of 1961 Dolphy joined John Coltrane’s group, playing on Olé and providing arrangements for the Africa/Brass recordings.
In July of 1961 Dolphy teamed again with Little and codirected a group for two weeks at the Five Spot Café in New York. The group was recorded there one evening, and the results spread across three live releases. The sympathetic ensemble and surroundings made for some of Dolphy’s best live recordings. As John Litweiler noted in The Freedom Principle: Jazz after 1958, "The results are Dolphy’s most personal revelations to date… ‘Status Seeking,’ ‘Fire Waltz,’ and especially ‘The Prophet’ are incredible displays of alto sound and spontaneous creation…. All the circumstances are right for these Five Spot recordings… resulting in a purposely, successfully, astounding evening of music."
Inspired Collaborations That fall, Dolphy toured Europe and recorded with Coltrane’s ensemble as well as other pickup groups composed of often-inferior local musicians. He also made some live recordings with Coltrane’s group at the Village Vanguard in New York, collaborations that are often cited among Dolphy’s most inspired—he contributed lengthy and memorable bass clarinet solos on "Spiritual" and the two takes of "India" during the Vanguard sessions. His association with Coltrane was also controversial, however. Down Beat associate editor John Tynan inspired a backlash among conservative critics against their form of improvisation, dubbed the "new thing." Tynan called their work "nihilistic," and said "they seem bent on pursuing an anarchistic course in their music that can but be termed anti-jazz."
In response, Dolphy made reference to the inspiration for his improvisations. When asked what he was trying to achieve with his music, Dolphy told Down Beat, "What I’m trying to do I find enjoyable. Inspiring—what it makes me do. It helps me play, this feel. It’s like you have no idea what you’re going to do next. You have an idea, but there’s always that spontaneous thing that happens. This feeling, to me, leads the whole group." But Dolphy’s style was not as random as his remarks might lead one to believe. As Ted Gioia remarked in The History of Jazz, "Like Coltrane, Dolphy had mastered the art of jazz through diligence, an openness to new sounds, and assiduous practice. Both saxophonists came to adopt the most radical techniques of improvisation, but—and this was the marvel—did so in careful, almost methodical steps."
Dolphy continued to work as a sideman throughout 1962-63, working with Coltrane, Mingus, Hubbard, Gil Evans, Teddy Charles, and "third stream" orchestras led by John Lewis and Gunther Schuller, which attempted to fuse jazz with classical music; he also led his own sporadically recorded groups during this period. In February of 1964 Dolphy was finally able to assemble an ensemble of improvisational equals: Hubbard, vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Tony Williams. The resulting release, Out to Lunch, became a jazz classic and Dolphy’s most complete and mature studio effort. As Litweiler remarked, "Now that [Dolphy] is playing with other musicians as advanced as he, especially the innovatory Williams, his style advances in clarity and impact, with increases in both subtlety and scope. In fact, his art seems to have advanced in every possible way; here are the breakthroughs that must have been implicit from his 1960 New York recordings, when those strange sounds and sweeping revisions of Charlie Parker first appeared."
Hutcherson’s vibes, in particular, created a new texture for Dolphy and Hubbard’s improvisations on Out to Lunch that could not have been matched by a piano. Williams’s direction of the rhythm section also provided an appropriate backdrop for the horns. Writing in Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz, John F. Szwed remarked, "For the only time in his recording career, [Dolphy’s] own compositions are dominant, and the quintet is finely tuned to his intentions…. What is especially arresting is the free sense of rhythm created by drummer Tony Williams and bassist Richard Davis even as they generally hold to a fixed tempo. Dolphy’s solos—on flute on ‘Gazzeloni’ in particular—are the best he ever recorded." Other notable tracks from Out to Lunch are "Hat and Beard"—Dolphy’s tribute to noted pianist Thelonious Monk—and "Something Sweet, Something Tender," which features Dolphy on bass clarinet.
Sought Acceptance in Europe Even after receiving some critical praise, Dolphy was forced to eke out a living teaching private lessons and recording as a sideman. Thinking that he might gain more acceptance as a musician outside the United States, Dolphy joined Mingus’s group once again for a 1964 European tour. In an interview with A. B. Spellman, recorded in the liner notes to Out to Lunch, Dolphy remarked, "I can get more work [in Europe] playing my own music… if you try to do anything different in this country, people put you down for it."
After the tour concluded in April, Dolphy remained in Europe, touring with pickup groups of varying quality. One session with a particularly fine rhythm section was recorded in the Netherlands in June of 1964 and issued as Last Date. Dolphy then recorded at least two radio sessions in Paris before heading to Germany. He arrived in Berlin on June 27 to open the Tangent, a new jazz club, with a trio led by German pianist Karlhans Berger. Dolphy was already very ill and able to complete only two sets on opening night. The following day his condition worsened and he asked friends to take him home. Dolphy died at age 36 on June 29, 1964, in Berlin from a circulatory collapse as a result of diabetes.
Selected discography Other Aspects, Blue Note, 1960; reissued, 1987. Out There, Prestige, 1960; reissued, Fantasy, 1990. Outward Bound, New Jazz, 1960; reissued, Fantasy, 1990. At The Five Spot, Volumes 1, 2, 3, Prestige, 1961; reissued, 1991. Berlin Concerts, Enja, 1961; reissued, 1990. Candid Dolphy, Candid, 1961; reissued, 1989. Eric Dolphy in Europe, Volumes 1, 2, 3, 1961; reissued, 1965. Here and There, Prestige, 1961; reissued, 1965. Stockholm Sessions, Enja, 1961; reissued, 1988. Far Cry, New Jazz, 1962. Vintage Dolphy, Enja, 1962; reissued, GM, 1995. Last Date, Fontana, 1964; reissued, Verve. Out to Lunch, Blue Note, 1964. The Complete Prestige Recordings, Fantasy, 1995. Illinois Concert, Blue Note, 1999.
With others (With Chico Hamilton) Gongs East, Warner Bros., 1958; reissued, WEA/London/Sire. (With Ornette Coleman) Free Jazz, Atlantic, 1960; reissued, 1999. (With Booker Little) Out Front, Candid, 1961; reissued, 1989. (With John Coltrane) Africa/Brass; Africa/Brass Sessions, Volume 2, Impulse, 1961; reissued Africa/Brass Sessions Volumes 1 & 2, 1974. (With John Coltrane) Olé, Atlantic, 1961. (With Mal Waldron) The Quest, Prestige, 1961; reissued, Fantasy, 1992. (With Max Roach) Percussion Bitter Sweet, Impulse, 1961. (With John Coltrane) Coltrane "Live" at the Village Vanguard, Impulse, 1962; reissued as The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings, Impulse, 1997. (With Andrew Hill) Point of Departure, Blue Note, 1964. (With Charles Mingus) Town Hall Concert, Jazz Workshop, 1964. (With Charles Mingus) Mingus at Antibes, Atlantic, 1976; reissued, 1986.
Sources Books Cook, Richard, and Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP, & Cassette, Penguin, 1992. Gioia, Ted, The History of Jazz, Oxford University Press, 1997. Harris, Steve, Jazz on Compact Disc: A Critical Guide to the Best Recordings, Harmony Books, 1987. Holtje, Steve, and Nancy Ann Lee, editors, MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide, Visible Ink Press, 1998. Litweiler, John, The Freedom Principle: Jazz after 1958, William Morrow and Company, 1984. Simosko, Vladimir, and Barry Tepperman, Eric Dolphy: A Musical Biography and Discography, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1974. Szwed, John F., Jazz 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Jazz, Hyperion, 2000.
Periodicals Down Beat, July 1994, p. 72-73; July 1999, p. 43.
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. ~ Scott Yanow, Rovi
Eric Allan Dolphy (June 20, 1928 – June 29, 1964) was an American jazzalto 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.
Dolphy was born in Los Angeles and was educated at Los Angeles City College. He performed locally for several years, most notably as a member of bebop big bands led by Gerald Wilson and Roy Porter. On early recordings, he occasionally played soprano clarinet and baritone saxophone, as well as his main instrument, the alto saxophone. 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.
Early partnerships
John Coltrane had gained an audience and critical notice with Miles Davis's quintet. Although Coltrane's quintets with Dolphy (including the Village Vanguard and Africa/Brass sessions) are now legendary, they 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."[1]
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 carried over 15 tracks featuring Dolphy on alto saxophone and bass clarinet, adding a new dimension to these already classic recordings. A later Pablo box set from Coltrane's European tours of the early 1960s collected more recordings with Dolphy for the buying public.
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. The first, more accessible and rooted more in the style of bop than some later releases, was recorded at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey with hard-bop trumpeter Freddie Hubbard. However the album still offered up challenging performances, which at least partly accounts for the record label's choice to include "out" in the title. Out There is closer to the third stream music which would also form part of Dolphy's legacy, and reminiscent also of the instrumentation of the Hamilton group with Ron Carter on cello and Dolphy on bass clarinet, clarinet and flute as well as saxophones.
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.
Dolphy would record several unaccompanied cuts on saxophone, which at the time had been done only by Coleman Hawkins and Sonny Rollins before him. The album Far Cry contains one of his more memorable performances on the Gross-Lawrence standard "Tenderly" on alto saxophone, but it was his subsequent tour of Europe that quickly set high standards for solo performance with his exhilarating bass clarinet renditions of Billie Holiday's "God Bless The Child". 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 ever since.
In July 1963, Dolphy and producer Alan Douglas arranged recording sessions for which his sidemen were among the leading emerging musicians of the day. The results were his Iron Man and Conversations LPs. Around this time Dolphy's pianist was occasionally the young Herbie Hancock, this group was recorded at the Illinois Concert and others.
After Out to Lunch! and an appearance as a sideman on Andrew Hill'sPoint of Departure, Dolphy left to tour Europe with Charles Mingus' sextet in early 1964. (Dolphy also played with Mingus in 1960, as heard on the Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus and Mingus at Antibes albums). From there he intended to settle in Europe with his fiancée, who was working on the ballet scene in Paris. The Mingus band for this tour was extensively recorded, including on the Cornell 1964 album and is one of Mingus' strongest line-ups, including Dolphy and pianist Jaki Byard. After leaving Mingus, he performed with and recorded a few sides with various European bands, including the mis-named Last Date with Misha Mengelberg and Han Bennink, and was preparing to join Albert Ayler for a recording.
Eric Dolphy died accidentally in Berlin on June 28, 1964. The circumstances of his passing are disputed. 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.[4]
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."[citation needed] 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."[5]) 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.
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's style in the instrumental "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue" (on the 1970 album Weasels Ripped My Flesh).
Discography
Authorized releases are ones issued with Dolphy's input and approval, with all but the Blue Note LP appearing in Dolphy's lifetime. Dates for authorized albums are year of release; for posthumous compilations and sideman sessions by year of recording. Some releases with Dolphy as a sideman were issued much later than the date of the recording sessions.
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