eric dolphy
Recent content on Elsewhere by Graham Reid tagged as eric dolphy.
Eric Dolphy: Out to Lunch (1964)
The sudden and unexpected death of saxophonist/flute player and clarinettist Eric Dolphy just months after these exceptional studio sessions for the Blue Note label robbed jazz of one of its most distinctive voices, and left many questions hanging about where the 36-year old might have taken his music. Already he had worked with Charles...
Jackie McLean: Right Now! (1965)
The Reid Miles-designed cover of this album by altoist McLean is a Blue Note classic. The hammered-out typewriter font blown up large and the thump of the exclamation point hinted at - and the intense opener Eco confirmed - the tough music within. Altoist McLean, born in New York in 1932, studied with his neighbour Bud Powell and played with...
AMIRI BARAKA/LE ROI JONES: A black critic in the black arts
Nobody talks about Amiri Baraka these days, despite the fact he’s still alive*, still writing and still irritating the hell out of people. That’s called doing God’s work. The last time he was sighted in the public domain was in that Warren Beatty movie, Bulworth. He had a bit-part playing a street bum-cum-guardian angel to...
jazz/2073/amiri-baraka-le-roi-jones-a-black-critic-in-the-black-arts/
JIMI HENDRIX AND ALAN DOUGLAS: The fireball and the keeper of the flame
The name Alan Douglas raises mixed feelings among Jimi Hendrix fans. By a series of canny and right-place, right-time manoeuvres after the death of Hendrix in 1970, Douglas -- a former jazz producer, and a friend and adviser to Hendrix in his final years -- ended up as the curator of the Hendrix legacy. While others, notably the many...
absoluteelsewhere/2164/jimi-hendrix-and-alan-douglas-the-fireball-and-the-keeper-of-the-flame/
ORNETTE COLEMAN AND THE NAKED LUNCH SOUNDTRACK (1991): Something else, again
Movie director David Cronenberg was a gutsy guy, asking Ornette Coleman to play on the soundtrack for his inspired but ultimately flawed realisation of crusty old Bill Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. Ornette Coleman was the perfect choice, of course – eccentric and of Burroughs’ period, he'd spent time in those hills above Tangiers...
jazz/2301/ornette-coleman-and-the-naked-lunch-soundtrack-1991-something-else-again/
THELONIOUS MONK AND JOHN COLTRANE IN 1957: Genius loves company
Thelonious Sphere Monk was one of the most gifted -- and eccentric -- of all jazz musicians. The memorably named pianist/composer, who died in 1982 aged 64, helped define the bebop movement and his quirky, angular compositions are among the most memorable in jazz. To drive them home he gave them titles such as Epistrophy, Humph,...
jazz/2302/thelonious-monk-and-john-coltrane-in-1957-genius-loves-company/
THE BIRTH OF BEBOP -- A SOCIAL AND MUSICAL HISTORY by SCOTT DEVEAUX
Suggesting that this engrossing, historically investigative and anecdotally amusing book should be reviewed because it asked the question, "Was bebop jazz a revolution or simply a musical evolution?" drew the response: "Yep, that's a question that keeps most people awake at nights." Fair enough. But in these scrupulously...
writingelsewhere/2330/the-birth-of-bebop-a-social-and-musical-history-by-scott-deveaux/
JOHN COLTRANE AND MILES DAVIS: Genius at work and playing, 1955-61
For two people about to write themselves into music history, their credentials were not promising. Only a few years previously, the trumpeter was so hooked on heroin that he was almost unemployable and would often fail to show for concerts. The other was a little-known saxophonist whose career was sound but unspectacular. He had played...
jazz/2336/john-coltrane-and-miles-davis-genius-at-work-and-playing-1955-61/
CHET BAKER REMEMBERED: The long journey into night
Trumpeter Chet Baker's death in 1988 was tragic -- but, at 59, he was lucky to have lived so long. A brilliant stylist whose work in Gerry Mulligan's piano-less quartet in the early Fifties -- and whose recordings in Paris shortly afterwards -- are worth serious investigation, Baker modelled himself on Miles Davis at his most ineffably cool....
jazz/2364/chet-baker-remembered-the-long-journey-into-night/
THELONIOUS MONK; THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AN AMERICAN ORIGINAL by ROBIN D.G. KELLEY
In late November 1963, a 5000 word profile of Thelonious Monk was scheduled to appear in Time magazine. Monk was to be the cover. An interviewer and jazz aficionado Barry Farrell from Time had spent months with Monk watching him at work and relaxing at home with his family, and the Russian painter Boris Chaliapin had been commissioned to...
jazz/2801/thelonious-monk-the-life-and-times-of-an-american-original-by-robin-dg-kelley/
Gil Scott-Heron: I'm New Here (XL)
When Gil Scott-Heron -- the American poet, activist and conscience of his nation from the Vietnam years to the Reagan era -- was jailed for cocaine in 2001, then again in ‘06 and ‘07, it seemed it was going to be the beginning of a slow, sad end for one of the most important voices out of black America. If he had done nothing...
Jaga Jazzist: One Armed Bandit (Ninja Tune/Border)
In which our Norwegian big band of jazz-and-elsewhere players borrow heftily from all comers (epic soundtracks and European art films, minimalists, Afrobeat, jazz-rock) and deliver something of a quilt of jazzy colours. They say it is "Zappa-esque, more humorous prog-rock" but in its scale and changing moods, much of it...
FREEDOM, RHYTHM AND SOUND: Jazz with a raised fist and a copy of Malcolm X speeches in the other hand
Few people today -- musicians included -- consider rock or jazz as “political”, even in the broadest sense of the word. Yet back in the late 60s and through the 70s large areas of both certainly were. Less than a year after that remarkable year 1968 (student demonstrations, assassinations, political oppression and...
CHRIS BOWDEN (2002): His slightly askew career
Sometimes reviewers find words lifted from their articles as a banner for promotion. Film companies seem the main offenders in this: l’ve sometimes written unfavourable reviews of a movie only to see a few judiciously selected words like “an emotional rollercoaster ride” lifted out of a sentence which in full read,...
Gil Scott Heron: Winter in America (1974)
The great pre-rap, spoken word-cum-jazz-poet Gil Scott Heron is perhaps best known for his angry The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (see clip below) in which he assailed those uncommitted or comfortable blacks who seemed to be standing on the sideline while the streets ran red and Black Panthers had their fists raised. For him it was never...
CECIL TAYLOR IN 1990: Florescent flights
Genius is the word a lot of people use about Cecil Taylor – but words get pretty debased these days. (“Genius, that‘s like brilliant - but better, yeah?” ) So let’s just say Cecil Taylor is different and interesting. Way back in the Fifties they used to debate whether his abstract speedthrash...
Zirkus: Sirius Music (iiii)
Wellington certainly throws up some interesting, if not always convincing, improvising artists who edge towards the free jazz idiom but rather hit a default position of swing-cum-Dixie with some slightly self-conscious moments. This one -- recorded live in Happy and on the iiii label -- shows that the spirit of the old Braille label and...
ALBERT AYLER CONSIDERED (2010): Opening the door to the future
Albert Ayler -- the inspired, heroic, driven and sometimes difficult saxophonist who committed suicide in 1970 at age 34 -- still stands at a crossroads in jazz. By the late Nineties – when an exceptional, expanded edition of Ayler live surfaced -- even the music's most ardent advocates were having to concede that jazz was almost...
jazz/3409/albert-ayler-considered-2010-opening-the-door-to-the-future/
CHARLES MINGUS: Genius captured in the late Fifties
Charles Mingus was one of jazz's greatest geniuses and remains among the most misunderstood. Irascible and demanding, his personality and roguish reputation often tower larger than his inspired music. The respectful Columbia Legacy reissue in '99 of two of his late Fifties albums – Mingus Ah Um and Mingus Dynasty – restored...
jazz/3418/charles-mingus-genius-captured-in-the-late-fifties/
Various Artists: Message from the Tribe (Universal Sound/Southbound)
On the surface this may look like one for those with selective taste: here is a 12 track collection of inner city jazz from Tribe Records out of Detroit between '72 and '76. The dates are important: Motown had all but gone from the city, many of the jazz musicians had been used as session players but were inspired by Archie Shepp, Ornette...
jazz/3420/various-artists-message-from-the-tribe-universal-sound-southbound/
Various Artists: Weird Nightmare; Meditations on Mingus (Sony)
Arranger Hal Willner has put together some exciting, fascinating, irritating collaborations in the past on his tributes to Walt Disney music, Thelonious Monk, Kurt Weill and Fellini soundtrack man Nino Rota. But this one for jazz composer/bassist Charles Mingus is a bit different. Previously Willner would put together people such as...
jazz/3445/various-artists-weird-nightmare-meditations-on-mingus-sony/
CHARLES MINGUS, PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS IN 1956: Man standing up tall
By the time Charles Mingus died in 1979 at 56, most of the obituaries had already been prepared. Mingus, suffering the increasingly debilitating Lou Gehrig's disease, hadn't been able to walk or play bass in a year, and things just got worse. When told of his passing, the bassist Charlie Haden said, "Charles Mingus was one of those rare...
jazz/3464/charles-mingus-pithecanthropus-erectus-in-1956-man-standing-up-tall/
Lloyd McNeill: Asha (Universal Sounds/Southbound)
Jazz flautist Lloyd McNeill lived the kind of life only possible in his era: he counted among his friends in the Sixties and Seventies Pablo Picasso (when they both lived in the south of France, McNeill also being a painter), jazz musicians such as Cecil McBee and Ron Carter, singer Nina Simone and many in the Civil Rights movement. He...
FREE JAZZ WITH A BLEEP: The Norwegian electronic-jazz label Rune Grammofone
Thelonious Monk said, "Jazz and freedom go hand in hand”. We can guess he meant freedom in a political sense, because jazz is about individual expression and in that regard was a vehicle for the aspirations of his people. It's about freedom and post-Monk found its voice in free jazz. Free jazz is much maligned, largely...
jazz/3534/free-jazz-with-a-bleep-the-norwegian-electronic-jazz-label-rune-grammofone/
DAVID S. WARE: The price of free
When the histories of jazz in the 20th century are published one name from the last two decades could loom unnaturally large: Wynton Marsalis. In some books he'll be hailed as the man who saved jazz from factionalism, commercial isolation and the like. In others he'll be the revisionist who used unquestionable talent, persuasive...
SUPERBREW: Journeys in the past
Any honest longtime observer of local jazz would say that right now it’s moribund, the patient has no discernible pulse. Sure some musicians would argue otherwise. But they would say that, wouldn’t they? Graybeards like me -- people engaged by local jazz and improv.music for over three decades, and aware of the decades...
THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET (1968-70): Lost in the big Apple
If you had a bottomless pit of money to start your own record company, who would you sign? That's what the Beatles faced when they launched Apple Records in early 68. Their famous ad which invited people to send in tapes saw their office swamped – but not one act was signed on that basis: Badfinger (then known as the Iveys) came...
jazz/3654/the-modern-jazz-quartet-1968-70-lost-in-the-big-apple/
PAUL HORN INTERVIEWED (1992): The healing force within
For a man pegged as “the founding father of new age music," jazz saxophonist and flute player Paul Horn has a clear, pragmatic view of the music – which was spawned in the wake of his Inside album, recorded in the Taj Mahal in the late Sixties. That meditative piece -- which used the long acoustic delay within the...
jazz/3672/paul-horn-interviewed-1992-the-healing-force-within/
Chet Baker: In New York (American Jazz Classics/Southbound)
Although you could hardly argue with a line-up which had tenor player Johnny Griffin, pianist Al Haig, bassist Paul Chambers and drummer Philly Joe Jones alongside trumpeter Chet Baker, the result was a fairly mainstream, late Fifties sessions which -- while admittedly pushing Baker in a way he hadn't previously -- don't really separate...
jazz/3724/chet-baker-in-new-york-american-jazz-classics-southbound/
Sonny Rollins Trio: Shadow Waltz (Solar/Southbound)
Although now 80 and still playing at the time of this writing, the problem tenor giant Rollns has faced from the Sixties onwards is that no matter how great he plays, his every accomplishment is almost invariably compared to his exceptional work between 1955 and '58. That was when he recorded Saxophone Colossus, Way Out West, the set which...
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie XX: We're New Here (XL)
Although much hailed -- perhaps because no one expected to hear from him again -- last year's I'm New Here by American poet Gil Scott-Heron did seem a little under-developed: pieces faded out, other bits were just snippets of conversations and so on. That didn't deny its visceral power -- made more so given his recently troubled life -- but...
TROMBONE SHORTY INTERVIEWED (2011): Born to blow
Troy Andrews – better known as Trombone Shorty – is one of the rising stars of the New Orleans jazz scene. But he had a head start, he was playing trombone in local brass bands when he was six. He attended the same arts college as Wynton and Branford Marsalis and Harry Connick Jnr, got out and played with rock bands (Lenny...
SONNY ROLLINS INTERVIEWED (2011): The old lion still prowling
Gary Giddins, the authoritative US jazz critic, said of tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins that he was “one of the last immortals, the most powerful presence in jazz today. He is its most cunning, surprising and unpredictable improviser – the one musician whose infrequent concert appearances foster intense anticipation and heated...
jazz/4123/sonny-rollins-interviewed-2011-the-old-lion-still-prowling/
THE BARGAIN BUY: Ornette Coleman; Original Album Series (Rhino)
The great saxophonist/composer Ornette Coleman never seems to have been in any doubt about how he might influence the course of music: the title of his first album was The Shape of Jazz to Come (an Essential Elsewhere album here) and that was followed by Change of the Century. Then there was the bald assertion of This is Our Music, his...
bargainbuy/4296/the-bargain-buy-ornette-coleman-original-album-series-rhino/
Tags related to eric dolphy
afrobeat alan douglas albert ayler amiri baraka apple black panthers blue note brian eno cecil taylor charles mingus charlie parker chet baker chris bowden cultural elsewhere david s ware david sanborn ecm records elaine brown fela anikulapo kuti frank zappa free jazz from the vaults gil scott-heron hal willner iiii jack kerouac jackie mclean jaga jazzist jazz in elsewhere jimi hendrix joe henderson joe lovano john coltrane jon hassell kind of blue lawrence ferlinghetti lloyd mcneill mc5 miles davis modern jazz quartet new orleans new zealand jazz new zealand music ornette coleman paul horn pharoah sanders philip glass rahsaan roland kirk ravi coltrane ravi shankar sonny rollins soundtrack for a revolution steve reich sun ra the bargain buy the beatles the last poets thelonious monk tom waits tomasz stanko trombone shorty wynton marsalis zirkus