3:19PM BST 17 Oct 2014
Eric Dolphy’s star just keeps on rising. The life of this great pioneer of free jazz was cut cruelly short in 1964, when he died of diabetic shock, and the recorded legacy is tantalisingly small. But its power to inspire gets stronger, particularly amongst the more avant-garde players in Europe. Earlier this year the power couple of European free jazz, pianists Aki Takase and Alexander von Schlippenbach, put together a festival in Berlin dedicated to Dolphy’s memory. It culminated in a gathering of some of Europe’s finest players, plus American vibes player Karl Berger. Takase and von Schlippenbach made new arrangements of a dozen or so of Dolphy’s finest pieces for the final concert, and nine of them appear on this CD.
It must have been a joyous evening. The applause is warm, and the players get carried away too, as the frequent whoops and shouts show. The band of 12 players is much bigger than the ones Dolphy led, and the arrangers seize on the opportunities this offers for new colours and combinations. Everything is brilliantly re-imagined, and infused with quick-witted humour. Most importantly the music-making keeps touching base with Dolphy and the tradition he sprung from, however wild and free it often becomes. The extreme points are certainly far apart – compare the austere, written-out five-part counterpoint of Serene with the happy, burgeoning anarchy of Miss Ann. Yet the whole thing coheres.
Dolphy’s wonderful Hat and Beard, a tribute to Thelonious Monk, is the best thing on the CD. It launches off with an astonishing polymetric mash-up for the two pianists, before seizing hold of Dolphy’s ingenious repeating bass pattern and making it misbehave. This pattern shoves its way into the melody line, and is eventually reharmonised in a way that offers a hidden hommage to the original – just the kind of compositional ingenuity Dolphy would have admired. In all the CD is a joyous thing, which should convert even a hardened free-jazz sceptic.
So Long, Eric! is out now on Intakt Records
