Classic Recordings, Out to Lunch

'Eric was a complete musician. He could fit anywhere. He was a fine lead alto in a big band. He could make it in a classical group. And, of course, he was entirely his own man when he soloed.... He had mastered jazz.' - Charles Mingus on Eric Dolphy

'The next time I see him I’m going to stomp on his foot.' - Miles Davis

Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch holds a unique place within the context of the sixties avant-garde jazz, and remains a singular masterpiece. However compared with an album like Cecil Taylor’s Unit Structures it is not such a tough nut to crack, at least not for those with open ears. Having played with the major titans of the era - Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, George Russell - as well as playing a not insignificant role in John Coltrane’s evolution from hard-bop to the father of spiritual and free jazz, Dolphy had made a name for himself as an innovator. In some circles he was deemed “anti-jazz” for his seemingly obtuse style of playing, and certainly Miles was no fan, but the vast majority of his peers recognised a formidable talent. Dolphy had recorded a string of terrific sessions as a leader, but Out to Lunch was truly the moment where he arrived at a new stage in his art, both as a player and composer. Sadly the huge leap forward of these February 1964 sessions was to be cut short just months later when Dolphy died of diabetic shock in Germany. He assembled a crack band of some of the most adventurous players on the New York scene for the session. Bassist Richard Davies split his time between jazz groups and symphony orchestras, and had already worked with Dolphy on the Iron Man sessions. Anthony Williams, then just 19 years old, was already re-writing the drum rulebook with the Miles Davis Quintet, and Bobby Hutchinson was advancing the role of vibes beyond that of even his mentor Milt Jackson. And a young Freddie Hubbard was fast making a name for himself as the leading post-Clifford Brown trumpet player.

In some respects the innovations on Out to Lunch were an extension of the Third Stream movement at the turn of the sixties, spearheaded by MJQ pianist John Lewis, which attempted (and largely failed) to fuse improvisation with classical composition. Although only on the periphery of the movement via his work with Coleman and Mingus, there is a certain chamber quality to the record. Texturally the album is not a million miles from the sound world of Le Marteau sans maître, Pierre Boulez’s masterpiece of 1955, with the vibes especially giving the record a cool modernist sheen. Dolphy’s playing reaches a new-found confidence on all three of his primary instruments - alto sax, bass clarinet and flute. Anyone familiar with his earlier work will recognise Dolphy’s trademark licks, especially on alto. He had a particular harmonic backflip which he would try to shoehorn into most of his solos, whether appropriate or not, and it always raises a smile when I hear it on his hard-bop sideman sessions - one incongruous, yet utterly joyous example being his contribution to Oliver Nelson's Straight Ahead. Despite being loosely part of the free jazz movement and appearing on Coleman's album of the same name, above all Dolphy worshipped the harmonic invention of Charlie Parker, and with Out to Lunch the years of persistence paid off.

The album covers a broad range of moods, albeit with a pervasive air of mordancy, and first track Hat and Beard really throws us in at the deep end. The title is a reference to Thelonious Monk, and it’s easy to imagine Monk hammering out something akin to Dolphy’s bass clarinet line, imbued as it is with Monk’s weird sense of rhythm. Hutcherson’s vibes sound by turns cosmic and clanging and Williams’s kit scuttles around, stop-starting, yet always with an oblique sense of swing. Outside of Sun Ra's work there hadn’t yet been anything quite this otherworldly in jazz. Something Sweet, Something Tender is another duo between Dolphy and Richards, and sees them transcend even those from Iron Man session for sheer telepathic communication. Gazzelloni is Freddie Hubbard's finest moment on the record, perhaps because it's marginally closer to the hard-bop tradition he was more at home with, Dolphy’s flute flitting around him like a butterfly. The title track takes us back into the abstract territory of the beginning, whilst the album-closer, Straight up and Down was apparently inspired by a drunk’s staggered walk, and has a lopsided, almost comical nature.

Reid Miles's tongue-in-cheek artwork brilliantly encapsulates the spirit of the project, the multiple arms of the clock in the shop's 'Will be back' sign pointing off in different directions all at once. We can only guess where Dolphy would have taken his music next. By all accounts a warm, generous and humble man who did not live the clichéd jazz lifestyle, Out to Lunch is testament to his genius and a great place to start exploring his work.