''Tears for Dolphy'' is a 1964

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...

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 ...

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 ...

Ted Curson Theodore Curson (June 3, 1935 – November 4, 2012) was an American jazz trumpeter. Life and career Curson was born in Philadelphia. He became interested in playing trumpet after watching a newspaper salesman play a silver trumpet. Curson's fath ...

. The album's title track, an

elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...

for Eric Dolphy (who died at the end of June that year), has been used in many films.

Reception

Brian Morton and Richard Cook, writing for ''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''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 ...

'', give ''Tears for Dolphy'' a favorable review, noting "a raw sorrow in the title tune," a robust rhythm section, and the leader's "high, slightly old-fashioned sound." Earlier editions of ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' give the album a rating of three-and-a-half stars. Chuck Berg, writing for ''

Down Beat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'', said Curson and saxophonist Bill Barron's "tough, but highly melodic lines above the steady and crisp rhythmic substructure ably provided by bassist Herb Bushler and drummer Dick Berk." Scott Yanow of

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 ...

asserts that most tracks "manage to be both explorative and surprisingly accessible."

Track listing

All tracks recorded on August 1, 1964. # "Kassim" (Ted Curson) – 7:41 # "East 6th Street" (Bill Barron) – 5:38 # "7/4 Funny Time" (Barron) – 5:28 # "Tears for Dolphy" (Curson) – 8:32 # "Quicksand" (Curson) – 6:39 # "Reava's Waltz" (Curson) – 7:10 The Black Lion CD (1993) appends three tracks from the same recording session, but that originally appeared on the album ''

Flip Top ''Flip Top'' is an album by American trumpeter Ted Curson which has one side recorded in the studio in 1964 at the same sessions that produced '' Tears for Dolphy'' and one side recorded live at the Seventh Yugoslavia Jazz Festival in Ljubljana w ...

'': :7. "Searching for the Blues" (Curson) – 7:47 :8. "Desolation" (Barron) – 8:45 :9. "Light Blue" (Barron) - 3:43

Personnel

* Ted Curson –

, pocket trumpet * Bill Barron –

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

, clarinet *

Herb Bushler Herb Bushler (born March 7, 1939, New York City) is an American jazz bassist. He plays both double bass and electric bass. Bushler played piano and tuba in his youth before picking up double bass; he is classically trained in bass and has performe ...

–

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox additions such as the octobass). Similar i ...

* Dick Berk – drums * Unidentified –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

* Alan Bates – producer,

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desc ...

References

{{Authority control Ted Curson albums 1964 albums Black Lion Records albums Fontana Records albums