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The second world war and some union strikes helped further the evolution of jazz, circumstances combining to mid-wife the first modern era of jazz. Members of many big bands were being conscripted, those left behind found the logistics of keeping a big band on the road when everybody was tensely tightening their belts difficult. Smaller ensembles began playing clubs in cities where big bands had played the dance halls and ballrooms.

The two personality types whose friction helped create art when combined with all sorts of outside pressure drove Bird and Dizzy apart. Both would go on to do other things, sometimes reuniting for a show but the collective creative aspect to what they did was now gone

The small club jam sessions had always appealed to jazz musicians as a refuge from the sometimes overly-show biz manner in which they often had to conduct themselves to please an audience.

Towards the end of the war, musicians who had been over seas returned with stories of admiration from a jazz crazy and desegregated Europe. New York with its club lined streets very quickly became a sort of Mecca for a new breed of musician, who like Beethoven some one hundred years (or so) earlier now demanded to be treated as an artist and not merely an entertainer.

At the forefront of this movement were two musicians whose paths kept crossing and who had shared a similar pedigree, Charlie “Bird” Parker (1920-1955) and John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie (1917-1993). Dizzy had worked in Cab Calloway’s big band while Bird was with Jay McShann’s.

Visit the new video sharing site for Fly and watch a performace by the Eric Dolphy Quintet

It was while on tour with McShann that Bird got a chance to go to New York and sit in at the after hours club jams which were also attended by Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) and future partner Dizzy. Dizzy was getting fed up with the constraints put on him in big band situations, Cab Calloway famously referring to Dizzy’s music as “Chinese Music”.

The very thing that makes him heir apparent is what has kept his name from becoming more recognized, we still have not caught up to his work. It remains, some thirty years after the fact, modern, not easily palatable, alien

Bird too, was chaffing under the restrictions of having to provide entertainment and not create art. They both worked together in Billy Eckstein’s big band (1914-1993) where Dizzy was allowed to do some of the arranging for the horn section. They started using more unique voicing in unison. They would further the experiments at Minton’s Playhouse (Harlem) where Thelonious Monk was often the house pianist carefully watched by his artistic Gemini Bud Powell (1924-1966).

1945-46 Dizzy and Bird worked together in their own small ensembles teaching some other musicians on the 52nd street scene about their new theories and the artistic possibilities. In this initial flush of activity and excitement many modern standards were written,” Hot House”, ‘A Night In Tunisia’ et al.

A tour of the West coast showed them the bitter reality, although what they were creating excited other musicians and some of the bohemians in the know, the general public was not ready for something so new. The two personality types whose friction helped create art when combined with all sorts of outside pressure drove Bird and Dizzy apart. Both would go on to do other things, sometimes reuniting for a show but the collective creative aspect to what they did was now gone.

Bird was king, Bird inspired many musicians, not all of them horn players. He brought an extended freedom to the jazz solo, more depth and technical possibilities. Hearing the recordings now, it is easy to forget how shocking it was to a lot of people. Alien.

After Bird died there were many alto players being dubbed the “new” Bird. While a lot of these cats had chops and in many cases have given us compelling bodies of work, the point was missed. The “new” Bird would have to not play Cherokee as fast as Bird had, he would have to bring something completely new to the table, alien.

It took the birth of several new genres of jazz to be created (third stream, cool, hard-bop, modal) before the next true king would emerge.

Eric Dolphy
The very thing that makes him heir apparent is what has kept his name from becoming more recognized, we still have not caught up to his work. It remains, some thirty years after the fact, modern, not easily palatable, alien.

Eric Dolphy (1928-1964) came out of the Central Ave, Los Angles scene which also gave us Sonny Criss (1927-1977) and Charles Mingus (1922-1979). He studied at Los Angeles City College and early on cut his teeth in the Roy Porter big band.

Down Beat magazine accused them of “anti-jazz”. So much negativity was made of this new music that Coltrane fired back in a series of letters and articles. The critical hostility was too much and by 1962 Eric had left the group

In 1958, his initial notice was garnered from a stint in Chico Hamilton’s (1921- ) band, which also allowed him to finally tour. After only a year of that, Eric moved to New York and joined Charles Mingus’s Jazz Workshop.

The philosophy and mission of The Jazz Workshop was to mix the complexity of western classical tradition with the emotions and earthy spontaneity of jazz. Because of Charles Mingus’s mercurial temperament the line-up for the workshop would ever be in flux, but from their initial union in 1959 right up until the time of Eric Dolphy’s death in 1964 they would often work together.

While doing his first stint with Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy would also work on the seminal double quartet chamber piece Free Jazz (Atlantic) by Ornette Coleman (1930- ).

The other, some would say most, important partnership which came about around this time was with John Coltrane and his classic quartet 1961-65 (McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison). For contractual reasons appearing under the name George Lane, he appeared with an expanded line up on their last album for Atlantic Records Ole Coltrane (1961) which also featured Freddie Hubbard and Art Davis whom Eric would encounter in other settings many more times.

The sweeping epic of the title track uses a two-bass drone figure, which was a precursor to an embracing of non-jazz influences, and would soon add to the colours already on the band’s palette.

After this, the Impulse label, new and willing to take artistic risks signed Coltrane. The first session was The Africa Brass Session (1961), which featured the dark burnished sound of an all brass orchestra. The large ensemble pieces were arranged by McCoy Tyner and Eric Dolphy, with Eric conducting as well. Future front line partner for the immortal Live at the Five Spot recordings, Booker Little (1938-1961) was also in the orchestra.

What at first may appear as mere enthusiastic discordance, upon repeated listening reveal themselves to be complex patterns, patterns which embrace both modern classical and the vernacular folk idioms much in the same way as Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok had in some of their greatest pieces

From this moment on, the Impulse labels calling card would be music that was cutting edge, sometimes well ahead of the curve. In the sixties, their roster of artists was a who’s who of the sonic vanguard.

John Coltrane’s next project featured Eric even more prominently, a live recording of his band’s Village Vanguard engagement. Originally only one set of this 1961 residency was going to be recorded. The engineers had the foresight to realize something important was going on and taped every set for all four nights. Like The Africa Brass Sessions an expanded line-up was featured. Aside from Eric Dolphy who appeared on alto saxophone and bass clarinet there would be an extra bassist, Gavin Bushell on contra-bassoon and oboe, Ahmed-Abdul Malik on oud and for some numbers drummer Roy Haynes who sometimes sat in for Elvin.

Again, as in the past, reviews were hostile to something so new. This music not only embraced free-jazz but also different ethnic music such as Indian ragas and the trance-like aspect of Balinese gamelan.

Down Beat magazine accused them of “anti-jazz”. So much negativity was made of this new music that Coltrane fired back in a series of letters and articles. The critical hostility was too much and by 1962 Eric had left the group.

He would forge on ahead in the direction they had started, whereas it would take a more “conservative” album or two before John Coltrane would venture out again.

Eric Dolphy came onto the scene fully formed. From his earliest appearances with both Mingus and Coltrane, there is that voice instantly recognizable. His was an amazing fecundity of ideas always carried out with a technical precision which never wavered no matter how fast the ideas came. Another impressive aspect of Eric’s playing was that no matter which of the many instruments he was playing, he was equally at home. Going from alto sax to bass clarinet nothing was sacrificed.

A new type of jazz was being born. They were creating a new type of jazz which embraced the discordance of free jazz, modal jazz, modernist classical tinged with what would become known as “world music”

Listening to his playing there is a cathartic release to be had when one initially encounters his speaking in tongues bursts. With repeated listening to Eric Dolphy’s solos one begins to realize, impressive dexterity aside, there are whole other onion-like layers to what is going on.

What at first may appear as mere enthusiastic discordance, upon repeated listening reveal themselves to be complex patterns, patterns which embrace both modern classical and the vernacular folk idioms much in the same way as Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok had in some of their greatest pieces. This heady mélange would mix with the spontaneity of jazz.

The famed America choreographer George Balanchine (1904-1983) said that, “Jazz was the sound of surprise.” Unlike a lot of art which at some point had been cutting edge, Eric’s body of work did not derive the majority of its power from the shock of the new. It has all aged well and still manages to offer up enigmatic pleasure. Although his career was brief, he managed to be on two of the most important live documents of jazz, Charles Mingus Mingus At Antibes (1961) and the aforementioned Coltrane Vanguard dates. Those recordings are a revelation, but not the place for a newcomer to his work to start. The best place is with his first and only Blue Note date.

Blue Note Records had always had the practice of allowing for paid rehearsals. This made for the potential of more complex music since the musicians did not have to worry about feeling their way through a non standard while laying down tape. In general, it was not unusual for the same artist to show up on each others dates, but a smaller group began to crystallize within an already established stable of artists. A new type of jazz was being born. They were creating a new type of jazz which embraced the discordance of free jazz, modal jazz, modernist classical tinged with what would become known as “world music”. Unlike Bop, earlier there was no one main rallying figure and the genre never really got a name that stuck. Indeed, all its main practitioners are usually lumped into one of the preexisting genres.

Out To Lunch (1964) featured musicians who knew each other and were all working if not directly, then in sympathy with one another to bring about a further complexity to jazz.

Bobby Hutcherson (1941-) and Eric had both been on Andrew Hill’s Point OF Departure (1964). He now appeared on this date, which was cut from a similar cloth. Before him, in jazz, vibraphonists had but two models for their playing the swinging attack of Lionel Hampton or the chamber jazz of Milt Jackson. Bobby brought an avante-cerebral approach to his instrument unknown until this point.

Freddie Hubbard (1938-) had worked with Eric on John Coltrane’s Ole Coltrane album. Too often he is just considered a hard-bop trumpeter who was used as a “straight man” in seemingly free-jazz sessions. This is misleading. He had an aggressive varied attack and also has been on too many important modernist sessions to just be a type of sonic prop. On this date he meshes perfectly with what is going on where as someone who was more blatantly free would only have served to distract.

He ends with humbly stating that he was moving to Europe where there was more respect and desire for this new thing which he was creating. Sadly, before this album would even hit the shelves Eric would be dead in Berlin due to a mishap involving his diabetes

Richard Davis (1930-) would work with Coltrane as he went further out in his artistic vision. His lines are supple and clear providing the perfect terrain for which the ensemble can soar over.

Tony Williams (1945-1987) was initially discovered by Jackie McLean in Boston. He would be one of the key ingredients to Miles Davis’s second great group (1965-1968). He performed and recorded on some of modern jazz’s most important works while still in his teens. He is one of the greatest jazz drummers and here he adds more than just a complex percussive depth to the recordings.

Out To Lunch has been issued as a “RVG” edition, which stands for Rudy Van Gelder. He was Blue Note’s original producer and over the past decade Blue Note has had him go back using modern cutting edge technology and remaster some of his classic recordings, always to great effect. The sonics on RVG’s are for the most part pristine and always noticeably better than a standard Blue Note CD release (of older recordings). Each track averages about eight minutes long. While not a theme or concept album there is a definite unified feel to it. One of my favorite tracks is ‘Hat and Beard’.

As opposed to the innovators of the earlier generation, there was no desire or need to show their theories through the vehicle of standards. Pianist/composer Andrew Hill only recorded his own compositions. Occasionally there would be a cover by someone of a Thelonious Monk tune, but that was almost a pledge of allegiance to what could be said to be the well spring of the musical outsider artist. Andrew Hill’s Point of Departure album’s second track is titled ‘New Monastery’ in a veiled reference to Thelonious’s last name, Monk. Eric’s ‘Hat and Beard’, another Monk reference. This track conveys the elliptical rhythms Thelonious himself was so found of employing. It manages to be both playful and deep.

All RVG Blue Notes reproduce the original liner notes followed by “A new look at…” which are new notes discussing the album and its importance with the hindsight of time. Here, the original notes were written by Eric himself. He ends with humbly stating that he was moving to Europe where there was more respect and desire for this new thing which he was creating. Sadly, before this album would even hit the shelves Eric would be dead in Berlin due to a mishap involving his diabetes. What would happen to the small group trying to birth a new art? Some others would die (Booker Little, Albert Ayler). Many more would move to Europe where there was a greater understanding of what they were trying to do (Archie Shepp, Mal Waldron, Steve Lacey, Randy Weston) Others would forge ahead fulfilling their artistic promise but seemingly also embracing a semi-reclusive existence (Cecil Taylor, Andrew Hill, Ornette Coleman).

The new king is already dead. He left behind his aural treasure. I can give you the words for power, release, thunder, but really one must hear it for themselves to truly treasure it.

Maxwell will return with further adventures in sound

Eric Dolphy - Out To Lunch (Blue Note RVG Edition)

Freddie Hubbard-trumpet
Eric Dolphy-alto sax, bass clarinet
Bobby Hutcherson-vibes
Richards Davis-bass
Anthony Williams-drums