jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
musician Eric Dolphy, released in 1962 on New Jazz (a subsidiary of the
Prestige
Prestige refers to a good reputation or high esteem; in earlier usage, ''prestige'' meant "showiness". (19th c.)
Prestige may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Films
* ''Prestige'' (film), a 1932 American film directed by Tay Garnet ...
label.) Featuring a quintet co-led with trumpeter
Booker Little
Booker Little Jr. (April 2, 1938 – October 5, 1961) – accessed June 2010 was an American
, it is one of the few recordings of their partnership. Pianist
Jaki Byard
John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for hi ...
Roy Haynes
Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925) is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jaz ...
all return from earlier Dolphy albums. This was a busy time for Dolphy- he took part in Ornette Coleman's ''
Free Jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...
'' session and recorded this album on the same day, and had participated in the '' Jazz Abstractions'' ("John Lewis Presents Contemporary Music: Compositions by Gunther Schuller and Jim Hall") project the previous day.
Content
The entire first side presents a suite to
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker Jr. (August 29, 1920 – March 12, 1955), nicknamed "Bird" or "Yardbird", was an American jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer. Parker was a highly influential soloist and leading figure in the development of bebop, a form ...
. "Mrs. Parker of K.C. (Bird's Mother)" and "Ode to Charlie Parker," both composed by
pianist
A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...
Jaki Byard
John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for hi ...
, are respectively dedicated to Addie, Charlie Parker's mother, and a tribute to Parker. "Far Cry," composed by Dolphy, is also a tribute to Parker (the melody is identical to "Out There"), while "Miss Ann" is a musical portrait of a girl whom Dolphy knew at the time. Pianist Mal Waldron, who would be in Dolphy's touring band during 1961, composed the tribute to
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...
"Left Alone." The album also includes two standards among the originals, "
Tenderly
"Tenderly" is a popular song published in 1946 with music by Walter Gross and lyrics by Jack Lawrence. Written in the key of E as a waltz in time, it has since been performed in 4/4 and has become a popular jazz standard. Notable versions have ...
" and " It's Magic." Little only appears on "Miss Ann" during side two, and "Tenderly" is Dolphy unaccompanied on alto saxophone.
The album was reissued on
Fantasy Records
Fantasy Records is an American independent record label company founded by brothers Max and Sol Stanley Weiss in 1949. The early years of the company were dedicated to issuing recordings by jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, who was also one of its invest ...
in 20-bit resolution on August 20, 2002. A bonus track of Eric Dolphy's "Serene," re-recorded at these sessions and previously recorded for his album ''
Out There
Out may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Films
* ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956
* ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander
* ''Out'' (2002 film), a Japanese film ba ...
'', was included.
Reception
In a review for
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...
, Al Campbell wrote: "Charlie Parker's influence permeates this 1960 session. Beyond the obvious acknowledgment on song titles... his restless spirit is utilized as a guiding light for breaking bebop molds... ''Far Cry'' finds... Dolphy in a transitional phase, relinquishing Parker's governing universal impact and diving into the next controversial phase...'" Similarly,
Stuart Nicholson Stuart Nicholson may refer to:
* Stuart Nicholson (footballer) (born 1987), English footballer
* Stuart Nicholson (jazz historian) (born 1948), British jazz historian, biographer, music journalist, music critic, and academic
* Stuart Nicholson (org ...
wrote: "as this album shows, his highly sophisticated style evolved out of bebop and Charlie Parker and was not devised in opposition to it, as many critics at the time thought." He called "Tenderly" "a minor masterpiece, anticipating virtually every technical and structural device on Anthony Braxton’s 'For Alto'." Writing for ''
All About Jazz
''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...
'', C. Michael Bailey called the album "Dolphy's most firmly ground effort in the Be Bop Tradition" and referred to Dolphy as "the grand unifier in jazz", " cried by neoconservatives as being too free and the jazz freedom fighters as being too traditional."
The authors of ''
The Penguin Jazz Guide
''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled b ...
'' noted that ''Far Cry'' "marks the first recorded appearance of Dolphy's most celebrated composition, 'Miss Ann', a delightful 14-bar theme that he was to play until the end of his life", and describe Dolphy's performance of "Tenderly" as "an astonishing, unaccompanied alto solo, a piece of work that bridges Coleman Hawkins's pioneering 'Picasso' and Dolphy's own later solo bass clarinet excursions on 'God Bless The Child', except that here the tune is still very much in evidence. Some have suggested that he was influenced by Sonny Rollins's unaccompanied 'Body And Soul', recorded two years earlier."
In his review, David Rickert wrote that on ''Far Cry'', " erything that we've come to love about Dolphy is on display here, from the unorthodox instruments to the stuttering, belligerent solos that seem to go from New York to LA by way of Saturn", and called the album "a bold attempt to challenge the status quo". Martin Williams called ''Far Cry'' "evidence of what an ideal companion trumpeter Booker Little was for Dolphy—and what a loss to Dolphy's music Little's death was only ten months later. As ''Far Cry'' shows, Little was moving gracefully, and with an easy and unforced trumpet sound, into musical areas in which Dolphy was already feeling comfortable."
Track listing
Side one
#"Mrs. Parker of K.C. (Bird's Mother)" (
Jaki Byard
John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for hi ...
) – 8:03
#"Ode to Charlie Parker" (Byard) – 8:42
#"Far Cry" ( Eric Dolphy) – 3:55
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...
Tenderly
"Tenderly" is a popular song published in 1946 with music by Walter Gross and lyrics by Jack Lawrence. Written in the key of E as a waltz in time, it has since been performed in 4/4 and has become a popular jazz standard. Notable versions have ...
Sammy Cahn
Samuel Cohen (June 18, 1913 – January 15, 1993), known professionally as Sammy Cahn, was an American lyricist, songwriter, and musician. He is best known for his romantic lyrics to films and Broadway songs, as well as stand-alone songs premi ...
) – 5:40
CD reissues bonus track
#
"Serene" (Dolphy) – 6:37
Personnel
* Eric Dolphy – bass clarinet on "Mrs. Parker of K.C.," "It's Magic," and "Serene"; flute on "Ode to Charlie Parker" and "Left Alone";
alto sax
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B ten ...
all other tracks
*
Booker Little
Booker Little Jr. (April 2, 1938 – October 5, 1961) – accessed June 2010 was an American
–
trumpet
The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
*
Jaki Byard
John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for hi ...
–
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...
Roy Haynes
Roy Owen Haynes (born March 13, 1925) is an American jazz drummer. He is among the most recorded drummers in jazz. In a career lasting over 80 years, he has played swing, bebop, jazz fusion, avant-garde jazz and is considered a pioneer of jaz ...