Eric Dolphy

On this centennial, I'd like to explore how he sounded to the people critiquing him while he was still alive, and how that differs, or doesn't, with how his work is viewed today.

Famously, in the November 23rd, 1961 issue of Downbeat magazine, critic John Tyen reviews a Coltrane and Eric Dolphy performance at the Jazz Workshop in Los Angeles.

He said at the time, quote, I heard a good rhythm section go to waste behind the nihilistic exercises of the two horns, end quote.

He calls what they're doing, quote, an anarchistic course in their music that can but be termed anti-jazz, end quote.

Anti-jazz in downbeat about John Coltrane.

John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy actually engaged with the critique.

In April of 62, they sat for another issue of Downbeat, and Dolphy was asked whether his music even swings.

Of course I do, he said.

He was a huge jazz double bassist.

He was famous for playing on Eric Dolphy's avant-garde classic, Out to Lunch, and also directed the improvisational session behind Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

Little Brother Montgomery passed away in 1985 at the age of 79 from natural causes.

He was an influential blues and jazz pianist.

Even if you think back to Miles Davis, John Coltrane, that era, Woody Shaw.

Eric Dolphy, there's a wave in the US and then afterwards, there's a kind of demand that comes in Europe.

And there's this pattern I've seen over 70 years, maybe longer, where people go to Europe and they're more celebrated.

They have new opportunities.

Right.

I mean, it's the same thing in Japan, too.

I mean, you know, like I tell people here, they're like, Amir, why did you move to Berlin? Why did you, you know, so I'm like, I'm just following the footsteps of, like you said, Eric Dolphy, you know, Dexter Gordon.

You know, he lived in Scandinavia for like a very long time.

Okay.

What's this guy about? And you can learn about Eric Dolphy once you learn about Charles Mingus.

You can learn about John Coltrane once you learn about Eric Dolphy.

And then you can learn about Miles Davis once you learn about John Coltrane.

It just shows that connectedness.

I mean, for me, it's like my dad, to Jeff Beck, to Charles Mingus, to Dolphy, to Coltrane, to Miles Davis, to Mike Stern, to whatever.

It's like a

direct line, yeah.

Well, September the 2nd, 1959.

Dee, can you bring up, get ready to cue up Charles Mingus on bass, Eric Dolphy on alto sax, Ted Kirsten on trumpet, and the great Danny Richmond on drums.

1960 release on the album mingus plays mingus um october of that year 1960 three years after september the 2nd 1957 ernest green elizabeth eckford terence roberts carletta walls lanier melba patillo bills minnie jean brown tricky gloria ray carl mark jefferson thomas and thelma mothershed where left their previous institutions, in some cases, Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School or Horace Mann High School to magnificent HBHSs, Historically Black High Schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, and punched their way with the help of lawyers like Thurgood Marshall and more close to them, the great Daisy Bates, who writes about this in her memoir, The Long Shadow of Little Rock.

They are known colloquially as the Little Rock Nine.

Thank you.

To all you Negro artists out there who are saying, I just want to make my music and talking about naked women and sex and drugs and whatever.

Take all of that up and throw it in the trash and sound a little bit with Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Ted Kirsten, Danny Richmond.

I think you can recover.