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The video's from 2014, so sorry if it's already been posted. Also, I wasn't sure where to post it.
This is amazing.
No, I mean DOLPHY was amazing. 
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06-07-2017 04:55 AM
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Oops. Somebody doesn't want to play this on the forum.
If this is your video, make sure it can be viewed outside of YouTube
David
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It isn't, but I wish it was!
Originally Posted by TruthHertz
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Dolphy was a genius.
Playing Dolphy's solos on guitar certainly is a technical challenge, but there is so much more to find in his music and thinking - what Nat Hentoff once called "the life-force of jazz".
"Eric told me that one morning that when he got up, the birds were singing outside his window and he said, ‘Oh!' and that became part of his music," journalist Nat Hentoff said in a recent phone interview. "This musician embodied what I call the life-force of jazz. You could feel the intensity of his need to express himself in everything he did. But it was always himself. He was one of the true originals in the field." The basis for Dolphy's approach to improvisation rarely relied on the song's chord progression alone. "They're based on freedom of sound. You start with one line and you keep inventing as you go along. And you keep creating until you state a phrase," he explained to Leonard Feather.
"You use other notes in the chord to give you certain expressions to the song, otherwise you'd be playing what everybody else is playin'. The thing only happens at the moment when you do it, and quite naturally it might change," Eric said, hoping to shed some light on the elusive process of improvisation...
"You CAN play every note you like," Dolphy told Leonard Feather, in a desperate attempt to convey the essence of the new music. "Of course, you can only play what you can hear, and quite naturally... more or less I guess what I hear is not your hearing."
"As I play more and more, I hear more notes to play against the more common chord progressions. And a lot of people say they're wrong. Well, I can't say they're right, and I can't say they're wrong. To my hearing, they're exactly correct," Eric mused.
[Perfect Sound Forever: Eric Dolphy turns 80 ]
>> I think the main thing a musician would like to do is to give a picture to the listener of the many wonderful things he knows of and senses in the universe. That’s what music is to me — it’s just another way of saying this is a big, beautiful universe we live in, that’s been given us, and here’s an example of just how magnificent and encompassing it is. That’s what I would like to do, I think that’s one of the greatest things you can do in life, and we all try to do it in some way. The musician’s way is through his music…Music is a reflection of the universe. Like having life in miniature. <<
- John Coltrane
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guy with a fender jazzmaster guitar playing dolphys solo on oliver nelsons tune -drive- off nelsons screamin the blues lp 1961
how can you go wrong?? haha
cheers
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Trane, Dolphy and Wes, it's said, played together for one hour. Of all the unrecorded music in History, that's one hour I would kill to hear!
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I used to work with george Barrow, the bari sax player on Oliver Nelson's Blues and the Abstract Truth album, and he told me that Dolphy used to play out of tune on purpose to sound like the flute-like instuments of Africa. Originally Posted by neatomic
guy with a fender jazzmaster guitar playing dolphys solo on oliver nelsons tune -drive- off nelsons screamin the blues lp 1961
how can you go wrong?? haha
cheers
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nice!..and besides alto & bass clarinet (which he (dolphy) pretty much pioneered in modern jazz), his flute playing was just beautiful..as mentioned ^ his whole concept (on all instruments) was very primordial Originally Posted by sgcim
dolphy and nelson together is as good as it gets..shame oliver nelson isn't better known..he was penultimate music guy...player, writer, arranger..did tv and soundtracks..could get very heavy and deep or just keep it fluffy light..a master
cheersLast edited by neatomic; 06-07-2017 at 03:43 PM.
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Yes, I was working with George the day Oliver Nelson died, and he was broken up about it. He had a lot of cool stories about his time in the Quincy Jones Band. Originally Posted by neatomic
He played on the Teddy Charles Tentet album with Jimmy Raney, and he said Raney always acted tough and wouldn't talk to anyone, because he had trouble reading the difficult parts on that record.
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>> dolphy and nelson together is as good as it gets..shame oliver nelson isn't better known..he was penultimate music guy...player, writer, arranger..did tv and soundtracks..could get very heavy and deep or just keep it fluffy light..a master <<
So true!
Their music was beautiful, evocative and lyrical, at the same time somewhat vibrant, rebellious and unpredictable, often exploring new paths.
Once an Afro-American friend of mine called their work (also the songs of Monk's, Mingus', etc.) the "antithesis of jazz how many WASPs would have liked it". I think he used the term WASP in the original historical way as used by sociologists, but I failed to ask what he meant exactly.
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Wow, you're brave!
I can't open the video up, but will check it out later.
Dolphy was amazing and inspiring, and some people, including musicians who SHOULD know better, still just don't get him. Everyone knows about Miles Davis's fat-mouthing, but once I was talking to Lou Donaldson back in NY. He was trashing everyone, as is his wont (called Miles a 'bullshit trumpet player'). When I brought up Dolphy his comment was : 'He don't know what end of the saxophone to blow into. If you like Eric Dolphy you got a problem'. I didn't even respond (what could one possibly say?). I just laughed. He's a good player and I give him props for his success making bebop entertaining and hanging in at 90, but he's a Charlie Parker imitator and there's 'no fool like an old fool'.
I bet if they ever played side by side he wouldda shut that big mouth afterwards.
Or maybe not...
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Eric Dolphy's great. The only criticism I've ever heard of him that made even a little sense was that his timing was idiosyncratic. Charlie Rouse said in an interview that at the end of a 32 bar chorus Dolphy might still be in bar 31. He might not have worked out in the Buddy Rich band but it's not a deal breaker for me anymore than Jackie McLean's intonation could be off. At least in the early years.
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Might as well call it customer repellent. Originally Posted by fasstrack
If you have to imitate imitate Dexter. Something like that.
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Well, you can't imitate Bird or LTD, yet many have tried to cop Parker and make make you listen twice for a bar or 2 to be sure. By the 3rd bar you can usually know if it's the real Bird. With Dexter, I don't think you can even fool us for a single bar, perhaps not even a note. No one can sound like Dexter! Originally Posted by Stevebol
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Not that it's so easy to 'imitate Bird'. Originally Posted by princeplanet
There's a funny old story about Gene Quill that the late Phil Woods (who took Bird, Benny Carter, so many others, put 'em in a funnel and it turned out only Phil Woods) used to love to tell about his erstwhile partner:
'A heckling customer came up to Gene after a set and, with acid, said
'Oh, Gene Quill. All you do is play like Charlie Parker!'
Quill, no stranger to a few tastes, turned to the guy, unstrapped his alto and handed it to him:
'Here. YOU play like Charlie Parker'...
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His music had HUMOR! Remember humor? Originally Posted by mrcee
He also was up to the challenge of playing difficult music and making it look easy:
There's a video, probably on youtube, of Dolphy in Mingus's band. Mingus was known for throwing rocks in his bandmates' paths, messing with them, testing them. Clifford Jordan (a great player, but thrown into a baptismal fire in that band) looked pained and like he wanted to get outta Dodge. Dolphy was smiling like a Cheshire cat, and took every curve ball thrown him and hit it outta the park.
And he knew what he was doing w/the time and everything else...
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Dolphy might be one of if not the only player that could go out and still keep the squares on board. Gorgeous tone. Reminds me a little of Johnny Hodges, although that could be arguable. btw Jackie Mac had a great tone as well regardless of his intonation. He played a saxophone, right?
Last edited by mrcee; 06-08-2017 at 06:07 PM.
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Jackie Maclean would often say the same thing. Actually, Jackie and Cannonball were the only 2 disciples of Bird that took the Parker thing to "something else" that I personally find more enjoyable to listen to.... Originally Posted by fasstrack
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Never considered Cannon to be a 'disciple of Bird'---he's way closer to Benny Carter in sound, and his 8th note articulation is very different than Parker's: sort of 'clipped' and very hard to imitate. Originally Posted by princeplanet
Phil Woods put it this way:
'You don't DO Cannonball' (Ben Sidran: Talkin' Jazz)...
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haha, maybe, but Cannon was touted as the New Bird shortly after Parker died. You sort of hear it in the mid 50's, but like I say, he moved on..... maybe even strayed too far into soul jazz, which is a shame because his late 50's / early 60's straight Jazz plying is untouchable. But then, you can say that about so many other horn players, couldn't you?....
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Originally Posted by princeplanet
There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say, but you can learn
How to play the game
It's easy.
Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do, but you can learn
How to be you in time
It's easy.
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Sadly, it's not me in the video! Originally Posted by fasstrack
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You're takin' the piss, right? Originally Posted by Stevebol
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Possibly... Originally Posted by princeplanet
I'm just feeling like a cheeky fellow today.
No, I wasn't pissing.
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Genius inspires genius.
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Jimmy Smith at Newport ('72) Kenny Burrell on guitar
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