So Long Eric-Homage to Eric Dolphy

TAKASE, Aki. So Long, Eric! Homage to Eric Dolphy. Intakt. 2014. AT, p; Alexander von Schlippenbach, p; Karl Berger, vib; Rudi Mahall, b clari, clari; Tobias Delius, ten sx; Henrik Walsdorff, alto sx; Axel Dorner, tpt; Nils Wogram, tbn; Wilbert de Joode, Antonio Borghini, b; Han Bennink, Heinrich Kobberling, dr.JOHNSON, Russ. Still Out to Lunch! Enja. 2014. RJ, tpt; Roy Nathanson, alto sx, sop sx; Myra Melford, p; Brad Jones, b; George Schuller, dr.The great jazz reed player and composer Eric Dolphy, age 36, was taken to the hospital in Berlin in a coma: hospital staff assumed he was a drug addict and left him sweat out the drugs. But Eric didn’t use drugs. He was a diabetic and he died in a diabetic coma. What a loss that was for jazz! Fifty years later, the tribute albums pour out. Among them are these two exceptional albums.TAKASE/SCHLIPPENBACHThe first is a collaborative album by pianists Aki Takase and Alexander von Schlippenbach, playing their own arrangements (five by Takase, three by Schlippenbach) of Dolphy tunes, including “Les,” “Hat and Beard,” “17 West,” Serene,” “Miss Ann,” “Something Sweet, Something Tender,” “Out There,” and “Out to Lunch.” The arrangements are inventive, rich and varied, ranging from two musicians in duet (Takasi and Mahall on bass clarinet on “17 West”) to horn quintet (Dorner, Walsdorff, Delius, Mahall, and Wogram, with no rhythm section on “Serene”) to a full 13-player jamboree on “Hat and Beard.” Piece after piece offers proof, if proof be needed, that modernist jazz can still be thoroughly engaging, and the quality of the solo work is phenomenal. The players come from Europe’s (mostly Germany’s) avant garde elite, include Axel Dorner on trumpet and Rudy Mahall on bass clarinet and clarinet (both featured on Schlippenbach’s tribute to Thelonious Monk, Monk’s Casino [3 CDs, 2007] –on which all 72 of Monk’s tunes were played in one continuous live session), Tobias Delius on tenor sax, the aging giant Karl Berger on vibes, pianists Schlippenbach and Takase some time together and other times separately, and madcap drummer Han Bennink.Both as tribute and re-creation and as original and compelling music, the album works. It reminds us that Dolphy was not only a brilliant reed player, with a distinct exciting voice, he but a jazz composer of the first rank. The music captures the duality in the man: his horn voice may have still used the harmonics of late bop but his ‘voice’ was unique: he was one of the two players of his era to ‘speak in tongues,’ not just run the changes. (Ayler was the other.) His composed music was more conventional, flirting with the age to come but firmly rooted in late bop. But who really cares? Dolphy’s songs were wonderful, as this homage album makes clear again.JOHNSONThe quintet album by trumpeter Russ Johnson is more conventional but equally satisfying. The heart of it is a re-creation of Dolphy’s classic 1964 album, Out to Lunch. The quintet on the original album was Dolphy on alto, flute and bass clarinet, Freddy Hubbard on trumpet, vibes player Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis on bass and drummer Tony Williams. Here Roy Nathanson concentrates on alto and soprano saxophone (replacing Dolphy’s flute on “Gazzeloni” with soprano sax), Johnson plays an updated Hubbard, not a clone of him, the piano of Myra Melford replaces the vibes of Hutcherson and Brad Jones and George Schuller play rhythm. (Schuller, by the way, is the son of Gunther Schuller, at least one of whose Third Stream pieces Dolphy played. One of Schuller’s compositions, “Little Blue Devil,” is included as an add-on to the original tunes on Out to Lunch: it is straight-through composed, no improvising, but has a solid Third Stream jazz feel.) Two additional Dolphy compositions (plus the one by Schuller) are added to the original tunes on the album. Everything works –tunes, arrangements, rhythm backing, solo work. Everyone is good but Melford and Jones drew the most attention from me. Melford is a blazingly original pianist and Jones is a virtuosic bass player. I almost wish I hadn’t written that because Johnson and Nathanson are great and Schuller does everything that asked of him on this album, and that’s a lot.Both of these albums show that Old isn’t Dead. Sometimes, as here, Old is really New Again. You just have to open your ears and listen.

FANTASTIC...!!! It is MY hope that Eric DOLPHY is honored that more than 50 years after his death, we continue to pay homage to his existence.

great tribute to Dolphy, very original