Ray RagostaERIC DOLPHY: SOME REFLECTIONS 1. Jazz is continually conversing with its past. Eric Dolphy--though known for being quiet, respectful and according to Mingus a "saint"-could be one of its most active conversationalists. In music he was quite outspoken when it came to voicing new ideas--sometimes he used the language of his forebears; at others he seemed to be speaking in tongues. Throughout his career Dolphy produced some of his best work as tributes. His very first record as a leader, Outward Bound (1960), begins with "G.W.," a piece composed for Gerald Wilson, an important early influence. On the liner notes to that album, Dolphy remarks, "Gerald did a lot for me. He would take me around to hear all the musicians and explain things to me." Of his own composition "Far Cry," which he dedicated to Charlie Parker and recorded later in 1960, Dolphy says, "One of the title's meanings is that it's a far cry from the direct impact Bird had when he was alive and his position now. Oh, people still talk about him, but how many still really listen to his records?" Out to Lunch, released in 1964, the year of Dolphy's passing, contains two tributes attesting to the widening range of his influences. One, "Hat and Beard," is to Monk, and the other, "Gazzelloni," pays homage to Severino Gazzelloni, a classical flautist who championed such innovative composers as Bruno Maderna, Edgard Varèse and Sylvano Bussotti. 2. For Dolphy, then, looking back and reflecting becomes a phase in moving ahead in order to hear things differently and discover new sounds. A good illustration of this process is his handling of two compositions by Duke Ellington, who formed some of Dolphy's earliest recollections of jazz. First, there is "Beginning to See the Light," part of the Ellington Suite recorded with Chico Hamilton in 1958. The Suite represents Dolphy's earliest solos on record and already shows him speaking in two distinct modes. "Beginning to See the Light" opens with Dolphy, on alto, playing a nice traditional treatment of the tune, although a few bars in, we notice a slight slurring of notes which hints that he really wants to do something else. After a guitar solo by John Pisano, we hear what that is: Dolphy breaking away and leaving the melody lingering at the edges, yet always remaining in reach, so that with one quick shift he could instantly bring us back to the original line, or at least its spirit. Next, Ellington's "Come Sunday," is rendered in a marvelous duet, with Richard Davis on bowed bass and Dolphy on bass clarinet. The piece, from Iron Man (1963), has Davis stating the melody while Dolphy plays along, around and parallel to it, in a series of fragmented runs and embellishments, some of them astonishingly minimal, which create a definite pull away from the path that Davis generally lays out. It is also interesting to hear Dolphy become momentarily absorbed in the deeper tones of the bass clarinet, especially at the very beginning of the piece. It is a brief but interesting formal statement, recalling another duet with Richard Davis, "Alone Together" on Conversations, where Dolphy for a short space becomes fascinated with the clicking of the instrument's keys. Also, the use strings and reeds on "Come Sunday" seems to refer back to renditions of the piece by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with Ray Nance soloing on violin and Johnny Hodges on alto; for instance, a 1944 version recorded for RCA. In a way Dolphy's version is a reflection, a tribute and a radical departure. 3. Eric Dolphy also developed an interest in Eastern music. In an interview (which can be found on the Dolphy website maintained by Alan Saul) Dolphy discusses Coltrane and his ability to create long and interesting solos around a limited chord structure. It is an approach analogous to that used by Indian musicians, "… in our Western music we can usually hear 1 minor chord, but usually they call it a raga, or scale, and they'll play for 20 minutes." And he adds, "… like in talking to Mr. Shankar, Ravi Shankar, they study for quite a while to get enough material to even work with." Again it's the point of getting to know your sources--and your ancestors. On the 1961 Village Vanguard sessions Dolphy and Coltrane recorded for Impulse, there are two pieces, "India" and "Spiritual," where two contrasting styles work to form an interesting effect. Coltrane's unrelenting flow of notes is set against Dolphy's fragmented runs. Dolphy seems to dart around and through that flow, especially in "India" where Dolphy is creating his own space, which feels vertical as opposed to a horizontal. This situation brings to mind a distinction Clark Coolidge refers to in "Listener's Reach" between two types of free jazz, a horizontal approach based on melodic rhythms, as in Cherry and Coleman, and a vertical approach, as in Hubbard and Dolphy. (See the essay in It Must Be Jazz where Coolidge discusses Coleman's Free Jazz album, on which all four solo.) Here, however, Coolidge does suggest that "horizontal thinkers" do better than "vertical minds," and at times the latter practitioners can leave one with an insular feeling. But it must be said that Dolphy's vertical space is a highly individualized one, formed through a specialized, personal absorption in music--and memory. |