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Jazz Revolutionary: The Life And Music Of Eric Dolphy

Thorough, sympathetic biography of the singular, immediately recognisable US reedman and flautist details his musical dedication and the often dismissive critical reception he endured before his early and unnecessary death aged 36 in 1964

This is a thoroughly comprehensive, complete biography of Dolphy’s life and music. After an informative foreword by Jeff Schwartz and an introduction by the author, the first chapter gives a brief resumé of his parents, Eric Allen Dolphy Sr. and his mother, Sarah Jr, mixed-race immigrants from Jamaica, and then covers Dolphy’s birth. Eric began playing harmonica and then took up clarinet at around the age of six. He took music seriously even as a very young boy, practising scales, fingering and sight-reading incessantly. He received strong support from his parents from the beginning and joined the Los Angeles City School Orchestra. Racism entered his life early: He earned an audition-based scholarship to the University of Southern California, only to have it rescinded when the school learned of his dark skin.

Dolphy studied with Lloyd Reese, one of the most influential music teachers at the time. According to bassist Charles Mingus, Dolphy took odd jobs cutting grass and hedgerows to help pay for his tuition. It was at Reese’s classes that he came into contact with Mingus, Buddy Collette, Dexter Gordon, Hampton Hawes and Red Callender. Dolphy listened to early Thelonious Monk records when the first Blue Note discs appeared, and it was reported that he regarded Monk’s compositional output as a blueprint for the future of jazz.

Referring to Dolphy’s 1961 British appearances, Grasse singles out Charles Fox and Alun Morgan as ‘prickly posthumous critics of Dolphy’s best work’ and accuses them of being ‘uninterested in progressive change’

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The early years growing up in Los Angeles, music lessons and playing with people like Gerald Wilson and Chico Hamilton are well covered but the main thrust of the book is Dolphy’s development over the years in New York, his determination to become a proficient multi-instrumentalist, his work and empathy with John Coltrane and his attempts, mostly frustrated, to play his own new music as a leader. For reasons that are difficult to explain, Dolphy never really made an impact as an original, new voice on his instrument – at least not in the way that Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor did. Grasse reports that Dolphy was keen to play with Taylor, but they never managed to get together.

The author is scathing in his reports of the ill-considered, vitriolic criticism that Coltrane and Dolphy received when Eric was part of the group. Referring to Dolphy’s 1961 British appearances, he singles out Charles Fox and Alun Morgan as “prickly posthumous critics of Dolphy’s best work” and accuses them of being “uninterested in progressive change”. No music played in Britain was recorded so we can’t judge. The criticism in the UK was harsh enough but nothing compared to certain American writers responding to the album Coltrane Live At The Village Vanguard. DownBeat‘s Don DeMichael referred to it as anti-jazz, a phrase echoed and repeated later by Ira Gitler, John Tynan, Leonard Feather and others. Gitler called it “one big air leak”.

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Grasse’s reviews of almost all of Dolphy’s records are positive, glowing in fact. He obviously feels that his hero has been badly treated by many others. It is noted that Dolphy found it difficult to get work in his native land and almost impossible to get leader gigs. This prompted his decision to go and work in Europe in 1964 following the recording of his most personal and greatest single album, Out To Lunch.

Dolphy died in a diabetic coma in Berlin when he hadn’t even realised he was suffering from diabetes. Many stories have accumulated over the years about Eric’s death, but this seems the most likely account. Grasse states that the direct cause was likely insulin shock caused by a doctor injecting him with insulin in a last-ditch effort to wake him, avoid brain damage and save his life.

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Jazz Revolutionary: The Life And Music Of Eric Dolphy by Jonathan Grasse. Jawbone Press, pb, 311pp. £16.95 UK, $24.95 US. ISBN 978 -1-916829-06-4

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