Eric Dolphy - At The Five Spot, Volume 1 (1978 Japanese Prestige Stereo Vinyl LP)

Eric Dolphy - At The Five Spot, Volume 1 | Vinyl LP - 1978 Japanese Prestige Stereo (SMJ-6572, Victor Musical Industries)

In the summer of 1961 Eric Dolphy and the trumpeter Booker Little co-led a quintet at the Five Spot Café in New York, and on 16 July Rudy Van Gelder brought his equipment down to tape them live. The band was Dolphy on alto and bass clarinet, Little on trumpet, Mal Waldron on piano, Richard Davis on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums. This first volume holds three long performances: Waldron's "Fire Waltz", Little's "Bee Vamp" and Dolphy's "The Prophet", the last running for more than twenty minutes on its own. The music sits right on the edge of hard bop with free improvisation coming up behind it. Dolphy's alto lunges at odd intervals and his bass clarinet talks in a low croak, Little answers with a bright, slightly bruised tone, and Blackwell keeps the whole thing swinging even at its most searching.

The band did not last. Booker Little died that October, barely three months after this was taped, only twenty-three years old, and Dolphy was gone by 1964 at thirty-six. That gives the Five Spot recordings the weight of a document, a great short-lived group caught at full stretch just as jazz was tipping toward freedom. It has stayed a cornerstone of Dolphy's catalogue and of the music of that moment.

This is the 1978 Japanese pressing on Prestige, manufactured by Victor Musical Industries from the New Jazz stereo master, with the cream obi, the SJ seal and a two-sided insert carrying Masahiko Yuh's Japanese notes alongside Joe Goldberg's original liner essay.