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Double Bass Eric Dolphy and Richard Davis

J_Bass

J_Bass

Supporting Member
Feb 7, 2008
4,857
19,542
Porto, Portugal
#1
Hello all,

I just wanted to share a couple of tunes that are a duet between Eric Dolphy and Richard Davis that I like a lot.

This is part of a triple album I bought some time ago, that has the 1963 New York Studio Recordings of Dolphy.

The booklet is almost 100 pages and is full of interviews, etc.. Very nice.

What do you guys think about Dolphy? I don't know his work with the depth that I should, but I'm going to correct that!



 
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#2
The album:

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#3
Uhm... Yeah, Dolphy is considered one of the most important post-bop/avant-garde jazz musicians to date. Just sayin'. ;)

I highly recommend the Coltrane Village Vanguard recordings. The box set IMO is a bit of overkill; Live at the Village Vanguard and Impressions are the classics.

There is also a documentary about Dolphy, maybe from the 90s, where they interviewed the musicians he toured with in Europe.

Davis doesn't have quite as high a profile. IIRC he did the avant-garde thing for a few years, not sure what he did after that phase of jazz largely ended.
 
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#4
ClusterFlux said:
Uhm... Yeah, Dolphy is considered one of the most important post-bop/avant-garde jazz musicians to date. Just sayin'. ;)

I highly recommend the Coltrane Village Vanguard recordings. The box set IMO is a bit of overkill; Live at the Village Vanguard and Impressions are the classics.

There is also a documentary about Dolphy, maybe from the 90s, where they interviewed the musicians he toured with in Europe.

Davis doesn't have quite as high a profile. IIRC he did the avant-garde thing for a few years, not sure what he did after that phase of jazz largely ended.
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Thanks for replying.

Yes, those are great albums, I have the Impressions and Live at Vanguard, too.

Oliver Nelson's "The Blues and the Abstract Truth" is great, too. Not avant-garde, though.
 
#6
lurk said:
This is one of the greatest jazz albums ever recorded.
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+10 on that. It's got some great "tunes" on it, though the blowing sections can get pretty out there. If you're in the mood for challenging music, IMO it's close to perfect.

If nothing else, you need to hear "Something Sweet, Something Tender". Both the intro and the unison outro are just Dolphy and Davis (bass clarinet and bowed bass) Here tis:

 
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#7
ClusterFlux said:
Uhm... Yeah, Dolphy is considered one of the most important post-bop/avant-garde jazz musicians to date. Just sayin'. ;)

I highly recommend the Coltrane Village Vanguard recordings. The box set IMO is a bit of overkill; Live at the Village Vanguard and Impressions are the classics.

There is also a documentary about Dolphy, maybe from the 90s, where they interviewed the musicians he toured with in Europe.

Davis doesn't have quite as high a profile. IIRC he did the avant-garde thing for a few years, not sure what he did after that phase of jazz largely ended.
Click to expand...
Davis played on Van Morrison's Astral Weeks. Sublime playing on that record
 
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#8
If your checking out the Coltrane Vanguard stuff to hear Dolphy not only is the box set not overkill, it’s a necessity. Of the 7 tunes on the original Vanguard record and Impressions, Dolphy is only on two. Besides that there is lots of audio from Coltrane’s 61 Europe tour, video from Germany on the same trip as well as some audio from Birdland in 62. There’s also all the Mingus stuff, studio and live, the 64 European tour with Clifford Jordan et al having been particularly well documented both audio and video. And another classic record he and Richard are on is this one

 
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#11
Those 1963 sides have been out in so many repackages over the years I wonder if there was ever any clear ownership. I got my first listen 50 years ago when 4 tracks were issued by VeeJay as "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Album", found in the $2 cutout bin at a local record store. I only bought it because Frank Zappa had recorded a song he called "Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue" that I had heard (though it's mostly an electronics collage). Yes, "Alone Together" really caught my ear.

My next exposure to Dolphy was this, another album that's been out under numerous names on numerous labels with numerous covers (also bought as a cutout). That was all it took to start a long search for more. Back then a lot of Dolphy's recordings were out of print, over time they started coming back in Prestige twofer reissues and today you can pretty much everything on CD or stream.

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If it hadn't been for cutouts I might never have gotten as interested in jazz. Sun Ra, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, Michael White...lots of wonderful sides that thankfully have come back into print in recent years.
 
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#13
oliebrice said:
Also essential, for both Dolphy and Davis - 3 volumes of Live at the Five Spot, some of the greatest music ever played. The rest of the band is Booker Little, Mal Waldron and Ed Blackwell, and it's incredible.

I love the way on Bee Vamp they never really completely agree on the form all way through, and it's still one of the heaviest things ever
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IIRC, the piano is out of tune on that recording, and it drives me a bit nuts....
 
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#15
oliebrice said:
Also essential, for both Dolphy and Davis - 3 volumes of Live at the Five Spot, some of the greatest music ever played. The rest of the band is Booker Little, Mal Waldron and Ed Blackwell, and it's incredible.

I love the way on Bee Vamp they never really completely agree on the form all way through, and it's still one of the heaviest things ever
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I love these too. This might be the worst out of tune piano ever on a commercial release! Mal Waldron makes it sound like some sort of beautiful weird percussion instrument.
 
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#17
ClusterFlux said:
Davis doesn't have quite as high a profile. ...not sure what he did after that phase of jazz largely ended.
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Not to derail a perfectly good Dolphy thread, but I'm still processing this, there's so much that Davis has recorded and played on, not to mention his teaching career etc.
 
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