Eric Dolphy: Out To Lunch (Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series) [BLUE NOTE]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series reissue was mastered from the original analogue tapes by Kevin Gray and pressed on 180g vinyl. Critics rank it among the finest albums Blue Note ever issued and a high point of 1960s avant-garde jazz.

This edition

• Blue Note Classic Vinyl Series
• 180g vinyl
• Mastered from the original analogue tapes by Kevin Gray
• Pressed in Germany
• Stereo mix

About the album

Eric Dolphy made a great many records as a sideman and a fair few as a leader, but just one as a leader for Blue Note, and he picked his team well. "Everyone's a leader in this session," he wrote in the liner notes, and the quintet bears him out: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Richard Davis on bass and an 18-year-old Tony Williams on drums, fresh from joining Miles Davis.

Dolphy moves between alto sax, flute and bass clarinet, and the five of them stretch the shape of a tune until it nearly snaps, then pull it back. "Hat And Beard" lurches in tribute to Thelonious Monk, "Gazzelloni" nods to the Italian flautist Severino Gazzelloni, and the title track spins off at strange angles. Dolphy said Hutcherson's vibes opened him up where a piano would box him in, and that Williams "doesn't play time, he plays pulse," which says it better than we can. Reid Miles' cover, a "Will Be Back" sign under a seven-handed clock, is a classic of its own.

Dolphy died in 1964 before the album came out, which gives the sign a poignancy nobody intended. The music, though, still sounds like it arrived from next week.

Also at Kops: more Eric Dolphy on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 3587502), a reissue of the 1964 album.