Eric Dolphy - Out To Lunch - An Observation Or 12
Mark
Now, you see, what this stuff here is, is you picture in your mind
Eric Dolphy, he's walking around in the neighborhood of jazz, and he
knows it pretty well, so he heads for the outskirts just because. And
there he meets Debussy and Saint Saens and Bartok, and sort of pulls
them into his neighborhood, but they don't sound like they did before
because this ain't Europe. Or maybe it's just that he got them at
their own game.
What a lovely thing a bass clarinet can be. I mean really. I've
never even seen one of the things in real life. An instrument with a
very dry sense of humor. Or more likely, that's Mr. Dolphy's sense of
humor. Freddie Hubbard's trumpet on the other hand is more polite and
slightly more serious and earnest, even though he does get excited and
go off sometimes.
The vibes instead of the piano: that's brilliant. Bobby Hutcherson,
he hits it and there are some question marks in the air in between the
horns. Not chords exactly, just two notes sounded together sometimes,
but it's more like he's asking questions of the other instruments
which they answer. Now when he does a solo, that's some
quick-thinking stuff. There's a point in the song "Out To Lunch"
where he and Tony Williams and Richard Davis are all by themselves
having a very animated dialogue, almost a low-key argument, bouncing
off one another, and Hutcherson sort of whirls in and out and among.
Something to hear.
Richard Davis is the same guy that was on Van Morrison's "Astral
Weeks" playing amazing fluid bass all through that record, and that's
the only thing I'd heard of his before this. He's not one of your
more polite bass players tonally, which is OK by me, and he likes
things to move so he can pounce on them like a cat and play with them
before he sits back on his haunches, wraps his tail around him and
just observes. His eyes might seem half shut but he is observing
everything.
Tony Williams is sketching all sorts of things and throwing them out
for everybody else to color in. Sometimes they don't seem to make
sense if you listen and isolate them from the rest of what's going on,
but when you listen to the whole thing you realize he's actually
working with the complete picture. It's in his head; you can't see it
but you can understand that it's there for a reason and you can hear
the direction it's going.
This evening I was listening to "Out To Lunch" and it occurred to me
that the whole thing could be a soundtrack to a detective movie from
an alternate universe, and if I concentrated, I could probably watch
the whole movie in my head if I wanted. But that was too distracting
to worry about because the music was doing so many things I wanted to
keep up with.
Jack Woker
>
> Now, you see, what this stuff here is, is you picture in your mind
> Eric Dolphy, he's walking around in the neighborhood of jazz, and he
> knows it pretty well, so he heads for the outskirts just because.
Pretty good weed, eh dude? :-)
Sriously, I enjoyed your little essay. I remember years ago, someone
commented to me during Dolphy's solo on "Straight Up and Down" that he
was reminded of a strange five-headed beast walking along the street.
Sometimes music can set up strong images in our minds.
jack
JC Martin
>Mark wrote:
>>
>> Now, you see, what this stuff here is, is you picture in your mind
>> Eric Dolphy, he's walking around in the neighborhood of jazz, and he
>> knows it pretty well, so he heads for the outskirts just because.
>
>Pretty good weed, eh dude? :-)
*LOL* I was thinking the same exact thing.
-JC
Mark
wrote:
> I remember years ago, someone
>commented to me during Dolphy's solo on "Straight Up and Down" that he
>was reminded of a strange five-headed beast walking along the street.
>Sometimes music can set up strong images in our minds.
That's it exactly. I find that a lot of this music, the "new thing"
or "free jazz" or whatever, does that for me. It's all new to me at
this point, even though it's 30 or 40 years old. It's a little like
if someone had only seen Norman Rockwell paintings all their life and
then wandered into the Louvre.
Incidentally I would like to say thanks to all the people who have
E-mailed me their suggestions. They are being noted & stuff, and as
finances allow the suggestions will be followed.