Eric Dolphy: Out To Lunch! [BLUE NOTE/EMI]

Why you'll love it

This Blue Note Essential Vinyl Series pressing comes on 140g vinyl, made in Germany. The Penguin Guide to Jazz gave the album a perfect score and its crown, and AllMusic called it an absolute pinnacle of avant-garde jazz.

This edition

• Blue Note Essential Vinyl Series
• 140g vinyl
• Pressed in Germany
• Stereo mix

About the album

Reid Miles' cover, a shop-window sign hung on a clock with seven hands, sets the scene nicely. Out to Lunch! was Eric Dolphy's one Blue Note date as a leader, and he said everyone was a leader on this session. The band proves it: Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, Bobby Hutcherson on vibes, Richard Davis on bass and an 18-year-old Tony Williams on drums, newly hired by Miles Davis.

"Hat And Beard" is a tribute to Thelonious Monk, with wild bass clarinet and a percussive break for Williams and Hutcherson. "Something Sweet, Something Tender" features a bowed-bass duet with Davis, and "Gazzelloni" shows off Dolphy's flute and nods to his teacher, the classical flautist Severino Gazzelloni. On side two he switches to alto for the title track, where the pulse is implied, not stated, and "Straight Up And Down," written to lurch like an unsteady walk home.

Dolphy said he wanted a free date from the start, and he got one. Sixty-odd years on, the sign on the cover still says he'll be back, which we prefer to read as a promise about the music.

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

Tracklist

Listen

On Blue Note (cat# 5796680), a reissue of the 1964 album.