Eric Dolphy

Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. (June 20, 1928 – June 29, 1964) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist and bandleader.

Primarily an alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and flautist, Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence during the same era.

His use of the bass clarinet helped to establish the unconventional instrument within jazz.

Dolphy extended the vocabulary and boundaries of the alto saxophone, and was among the earliest significant jazz flute soloists.

His improvisational style was characterized by the use of wide intervals, in addition to employing an array of extended techniques to emulate the sounds of human voices and animals.

He used melodic lines that were "angular, zigzagging from interval to interval, taking hairpin turns at unexpected junctures, making dramatic leaps from the lower to the upper register."

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.

Dolphy was born and raised in Los Angeles.

His parents were Sadie and Eric Dolphy, Sr., who immigrated to the United States from Panama.

He began music lessons at age six, studying clarinet and saxophone privately.

While still in junior high, he began to study the oboe, aspiring to a professional symphonic career, and received a two-year scholarship to study at the music school of the University of Southern California.

Aged thirteen, he received a "Superior" award on clarinet from the California School Band and Orchestra festival.

He attended Dorsey High School, where he continued his musical studies and learned additional instruments.

By 1946, he was co-director of the Youth Choir at the Westminster Presbyterian Church run by Reverend Hampton B. Hawes, father of the jazz pianist of the same name. He graduated in 1947, then attended Los Angeles City College, during which time he played contemporary classical works such as Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat and, along with Jimmy Knepper and Art Farmer, performed with Roy Porter's 17 Beboppers, He went on to make eight recordings with Porter by 1949.

On these early sessions, he occasionally played baritone saxophone, as well as alto saxophone, flute and soprano clarinet.

Dolphy entered the U.S. Army in 1950 and was stationed at Fort Lewis, Washington.

Beginning in 1952, he attended the Navy School of Music.

Following his discharge in 1953, he returned to L.A., where he worked with many musicians, including Buddy Collette, Eddie Beal, and Gerald Wilson, to whom he later dedicated the tune "G.W.", recorded on Outward Bound.

Dolphy often had friends come by to jam, enabled by the fact that his father had built a studio for him in the family's backyard.

Recordings made in 1954 with Clifford Brown document this early period.

Dolphy and John Coltrane knew each other long before they formally played together, having met when Coltrane was in Los Angeles with Johnny Hodges in 1954.

Dolphy gained his big break when he was invited to join Chico Hamilton's quintet in 1958.

With the group he became known to a wider audience and was able to tour extensively through 1958–59, when he left Hamilton's group and moved to New York City.

Dolphy appears with Hamilton's band in the film Jazz on a Summer's Day playing flute during the Newport Jazz Festival of 1958.

Charles Mingus had known Dolphy from growing up in Los Angeles, and the younger man joined Mingus' Jazz Workshop in 1960, shortly after arriving in New York.

He took part in Mingus' big band recording Pre-Bird (sometimes re-released as Mingus Revisited), and is featured on "Bemoanable Lady".

Later he joined Mingus' working band at the Showplace during 1960 (memorialized in the poem "Mingus at the Showplace" by William Matthews), and 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 alto in a big band. He could make it in a classical group. And, of course, he was entirely his own man when he soloed.... He had mastered jazz. And he had mastered all the instruments he played. In fact, he knew more than was supposed to be possible to do on them."

In the same year, Dolphy took part in the Mingus led Jazz Artist Guild project and its Newport Rebels recording session.

Touring in Europe with Mingus in 1961 Dolphy continued on to perform as a solo artist where he was recorded in Scandinavia and Berlin.

They would often exchange ideas and learn from each other, and eventually, after many nights sitting in with Coltrane's band, Dolphy was asked to become a full member in early 1961.

Coltrane had gained an audience and critical notice with Miles Davis's quintet, but alienated some leading jazz critics when he began to move away from hard bop.

Although Coltrane's quintets with Dolphy (including the Village Vanguard and Africa/Brass sessions) are now accepted, they originally provoked DownBeat 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."

The initial release of Coltrane's residency at the Vanguard selected three tracks, only one of which featured Dolphy.

(See The Berlin Concerts, The Complete Uppsala Concert, Eric Dolphy in Europe Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (1 and 3 were also released as Copenhagen Concert), and Stockholm Sessions. ) He was later among the musicians who worked on Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus in 1963, and is featured on "Hora Decubitus".

In early 1964, he returned to Mingus' working band, now including Jaki Byard, Johnny Coles, and Clifford Jordan.

This sextet worked at the Five Spot before playing at Cornell University and Town Hall in New York (both were recorded: Cornell 1964 and Town Hall Concert) and subsequently touring Europe.

The short tour is well-documented on Revenge!, The Great Concert of Charles Mingus, Mingus in Europe Volume I, and Mingus in Europe Volume II.

After being issued haphazardly over the next 30 years, a comprehensive box-set featuring the music recorded at the Vanguard was released on Impulse! in 1997, called The Complete 1961 Village Vanguard Recordings.