Eric Dolphy – At The Five Spot, Volume 1. (1961) https://youtu.be/5B-encSrXfE Original Liner Notes: When the quintet whose music appears here played at the Five Spol in the summer of 1961, many people were pleased, not by the music alone, but by the idea. There has been a new music coming for years now, and a group such as this was one of the most definitive announcements that such a music was now definitely here, for batter or worse. It was also interesting, and a good sign, that the members of the quintet had chosen. make their group a cooperative one, which seamed to signity that the music itself would be more important than any one man's quest for stardom
In format, it standard quintet of the kind that the bop era had made traditional saxophone, trumpel, and three rhythm-hot the music hinted at developments going far beyond that concept
To begin with, there is Eric Dolphy, who is enough in himself to make the word "standard" inapplicable to any unit he works A master of all the reed instruments, although he only employs alto saxophone and bass clarinat here, he is one of the most and at times the most-shatteringly intense players in contemporary music At the time of this recording, although ha had just won the Down Beat International Critics Poll as New Star alto saxophonist, the Five Spor engagement represented the first
regular work he had had since leaving Charles Mingus several months before. Since that time, he has been the center of considerable controversy as a member of the group led by John Coltrane.
Trumpeter Booker Little died ass than three months after this recording was made, on October 5, 1961. Some of the things he said to Robert Levin in a Menonome interview ore pertinent to his work here: "Ir my own work, he said, "I'm particularly interested in the possibilities of dissonance. If it's a consonant sound it's going to sound smaller The more dissonance, the bigger the sound. It sounds like more horms, in fact, you can't always tell how many there are. And your shadings con be more varied. Dissonance is a tool to achieve these things. Another part of the interview elaborated on his concept of dissonance, I can't think in terms of wrong notesin fact I don't hear any notes as being wrong it's a matter of knowing how to integrate the notes and, if you must, how to resolve them. Because if you insist that this nate or that note is wrong I think you're thinking completely conventionally technically and fargetting about emotion. And don't think anyone would deny that more emotion can be reached and and expressed outside of the conventional way of playing which consists of whole steps and half steps
There's more emotion that can se expressed by the notes that are played flat His friend Nat Hentoff wrote of him that "Booker heard more than most because he had fewer blocks. than most. In his living, he was neither paralyzed nor twisted by dissonance. He also knew that nothing is fully consonant And his music, es bas been true of all the jazzmen whose work lasts, was himself Bath ware big, and their possibilities had only begun to be realized."
With two such men in the front line, a stabilizing element required to keep the music going in urder standable patterns. This was tha function of pianist Mal Waldron, and he filled his cale to perfection. Waldron has had much experience at exactly this sort of thing, having been the pianist for Charles Mingus for a long period of time. To my mind, he is one of the most consistently excellent. of contemporary pianists, end, un fortunately, ane whose excellence is too often taken for granted. This album contains brilliant examples of Waldron at his best, spinning out a few notes to their fullest imal-cation (Manik does this too), and keeping a powerful puise present at all times. There are few more committed to the music than Waldron, few who play it with more skill and cedication, and few as overdue in their acceptance:
Bassist Richard Davis first came to prominence working with pianists Ahmad Jamal and Don Shirlay, neither of which jobs necessarily prepared him for work in the present group. He also spent quite a bit of time working for Sarah Vaughan. He is a thoroughly grounded classical tachrision, and may be the orly bassist in Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz to list the great Serge Koussevitsky as his favorite Davis is one of several players who are currently making the expanding role of the bass the most interesting phenomenon on the current jazz scene Drummer Ed Blackwell is familiar Serge
with the forthest reaches of the new jazz, hoving come to prominence as a memset of the Orcette Coleman Quartet, and Coleman has said of him that he has "ons of the mast musical ears of playing rhythm of anyone I hove heard
In some senses, on unusual group to be playing together, but in the more important one, an excellent one. The almosphere which the recordings were made the present album is the first of a series which will eventually be released since the music was of an anusvaly high quality that night, and there was more usable maternal than is customary in such circumstances) was a cross between a regular evening at a club and private party. Friends and advocates of members of the group
were invited to come down and participate. Nat Hentoff, who in his own sometime capacity as A&R man had recorded both Eric and Booker, was there, as were tra Gitier and Ted White. A painter who is as impressed with Eric's striking face and beard os he is with his music was there to see it Eric would pose. Prestige art director Don Schlitten, whose photograph adorns this album cover, risked death from those he blinded with his Bashbulbs while attempting to get the shot, But not all the applause and shouts of approval you will hear rome from them. The room was filled with people who came because of the raputation of the group's players, without any inowledge of a recording And, I should imagine, several were there because the Five Spot is still the most congenial atmosphere in Naw York in which to listen to jazz. Various continue in that tradition, to its outmost aspects of the "new thing" have started there, as far as New York is concerned, with the appearances of such groups co those lec led by Cecil Taylor. Ornette Coleman, and George Russell, and so it is filling that this recording should have been made there.Excellence on this IP are too many to enumerate, and are even more stortling
considering the in-person circumatonces under which they were recorded, allowing no chance to do anything
over. But that, of course, is what jazz at its best be is supposed to be. It can reaches, as long as there are musicions like this to play it
It is also fiting, since this was a cooperative group, that each of the major soloists contributed one of the three compositions heard. "Fire Woltz." by Mal Waldron (Dolphy is on altoj. reflects the growing concern of young
players with rhythms other than the basic 4/4. Booker Little's "Bee Vamp" (Dalphy plays bass clarinet is, as its title implies, concerned with another aspect of the newest jozz, chordal suspension. The entire second side of the 1? is taken up by a composition of Dolphy's the plays alto), "The Prophet." It is close to the ballad farm, and is named for a friend of Eric's, the pointer Richard Jennings, called Frophet, who painted the covers for Eric's first two Prestige New Jazz LP: (Outward Bound, 8236, and Out Thene, 8252) The individual moments af
-JOE GOLDBERG
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Eric Dolphy – At The Five Spot, Volume 1. (1961)
https://youtu.be/5B-encSrXfE
Original Liner Notes:
When the quintet whose music appears here played at the Five Spol in the summer of 1961, many people were pleased, not by the music alone, but by the idea. There has been a new music coming for years now, and a group such as this was one of the most definitive announcements that such a music was now definitely here, for batter or worse. It was also interesting, and a good sign, that the members of the quintet had chosen. make their group a cooperative one, which seamed to signity that the music itself would be more important than any one man's quest for stardom
In format, it standard quintet of the kind that the bop era had made traditional saxophone, trumpel, and three rhythm-hot the music hinted at developments going far beyond that concept
To begin with, there is Eric Dolphy, who is enough in himself to make the word "standard" inapplicable to any unit he works A master of all the reed instruments, although he only employs alto saxophone and bass clarinat here, he is one of the most and at times the most-shatteringly intense players in contemporary music At the time of this recording, although ha had just won the Down Beat International Critics Poll as New Star alto saxophonist, the Five Spor engagement represented the first
regular work he had had since leaving Charles Mingus several months before. Since that time, he has been the center of considerable controversy as a member of the group led by John Coltrane.
Trumpeter Booker Little died ass than three months after this recording was made, on October 5, 1961. Some of the things he said to Robert Levin in a Menonome interview ore pertinent to his work here: "Ir my own work, he said, "I'm particularly interested in the possibilities of dissonance. If it's a consonant sound it's going to sound smaller The more dissonance, the bigger the sound. It sounds like more horms, in fact, you can't always tell how many there are. And your shadings con be more varied. Dissonance is a tool to achieve these things. Another part of the interview elaborated on his concept of dissonance, I can't think in terms of wrong notesin fact I don't hear any notes as being wrong it's a matter of knowing how to integrate the notes and, if you must, how to resolve them. Because if you insist that this nate or that note is wrong I think you're thinking completely conventionally technically and fargetting about emotion. And don't think anyone would deny that more emotion can be reached and and expressed outside of the conventional way of playing which consists of whole steps and half steps
There's more emotion that can se expressed by the notes that are played flat His friend Nat Hentoff wrote of him that "Booker heard more than most because he had fewer blocks. than most. In his living, he was neither paralyzed nor twisted by dissonance. He also knew that nothing is fully consonant And his music, es bas been true of all the jazzmen whose work lasts, was himself Bath ware big, and their possibilities had only begun to be realized."
With two such men in the front line, a stabilizing element required to keep the music going in urder standable patterns. This was tha function of pianist Mal Waldron, and he filled his cale to perfection. Waldron has had much experience at exactly this sort of thing, having been the pianist for Charles Mingus for a long period of time. To my mind, he is one of the most consistently excellent. of contemporary pianists, end, un fortunately, ane whose excellence is too often taken for granted. This album contains brilliant examples of Waldron at his best, spinning out a few notes to their fullest imal-cation (Manik does this too), and keeping a powerful puise present at all times. There are few more committed to the music than Waldron, few who play it with more skill and cedication, and few as overdue in their acceptance:
Bassist Richard Davis first came to prominence working with pianists Ahmad Jamal and Don Shirlay, neither of which jobs necessarily prepared him for work in the present group. He also spent quite a bit of time working for Sarah Vaughan. He is a thoroughly grounded classical tachrision, and may be the orly bassist in Leonard Feather's Encyclopedia of Jazz to list the great Serge Koussevitsky as his favorite Davis is one of several players who are currently making the expanding role of the bass the most interesting phenomenon on the current jazz scene Drummer Ed Blackwell is familiar Serge
with the forthest reaches of the new jazz, hoving come to prominence as a memset of the Orcette Coleman Quartet, and Coleman has said of him that he has "ons of the mast musical ears of playing rhythm of anyone I hove heard
In some senses, on unusual group to be playing together, but in the more important one, an excellent one. The almosphere which the recordings were made the present album is the first of a series which will eventually be released since the music was of an anusvaly high quality that night, and there was more usable maternal than is customary in such circumstances) was a cross between a regular evening at a club and private party. Friends and advocates of members of the group
were invited to come down and participate. Nat Hentoff, who in his own sometime capacity as A&R man had recorded both Eric and Booker, was there, as were tra Gitier and Ted White. A painter who is as impressed with Eric's striking face and beard os he is with his music was there to see it Eric would pose. Prestige art director Don Schlitten, whose photograph adorns this album cover, risked death from those he blinded with his Bashbulbs while attempting to get the shot, But not all the applause and shouts of approval you will hear rome from them. The room was filled with people who came because of the raputation of the group's players, without any inowledge of a recording And, I should imagine, several were there because the Five Spot is still the most congenial atmosphere in Naw York in which to listen to jazz. Various continue in that tradition, to its outmost aspects of the "new thing" have started there, as far as New York is concerned, with the appearances of such groups co those lec led by Cecil Taylor. Ornette Coleman, and George Russell, and so it is filling that this recording should have been made there.Excellence on this IP are too many to enumerate, and are even more stortling
considering the in-person circumatonces under which they were recorded, allowing no chance to do anything
over. But that, of course, is what jazz at its best be is supposed to be. It can reaches, as long as there are musicions like this to play it
It is also fiting, since this was a cooperative group, that each of the major soloists contributed one of the three compositions heard. "Fire Woltz." by Mal Waldron (Dolphy is on altoj. reflects the growing concern of young
players with rhythms other than the basic 4/4. Booker Little's "Bee Vamp" (Dalphy plays bass clarinet is, as its title implies, concerned with another aspect of the newest jozz, chordal suspension. The entire second side of the 1? is taken up by a composition of Dolphy's the plays alto), "The Prophet." It is close to the ballad farm, and is named for a friend of Eric's, the pointer Richard Jennings, called Frophet, who painted the covers for Eric's first two Prestige New Jazz LP: (Outward Bound, 8236, and Out Thene, 8252) The individual moments af
-JOE GOLDBERG
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