Contributed by Mel
The following is a review from "Back Story":
Jazz
Revolutionary is the first full biography of Eric Dolphy, passionately
tracing his creative life from Los Angeles clubs of the late 1940s and
50s, to New York in the early 1960s, and on to Paris, where sixty years
ago he died from the complications of undiagnosed diabetes. It presents
an engaging examination of this innovative musician and composer, from
his family background to posthumous memorials, and provides insight into
his recordings both as sideman and leader. Dolphy emerged at the
frontiers of post-bop and free jazz, collaborating with John Coltrane,
Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, and Gunther Schuller, among others,
during the early 1960s. This book accounts for his successes, trials,
and tribulations. His critical reception is presented as an element of
his career s ups and downs, ultimately leading to an attempt at a new
life in Paris. The albums on which he appears are interpreted title by
title, track by track, without unnecessary musical terminology or
musical examples; instead of cold discographic charts, readers are
brought into each recording with a descriptive prose framework
reflecting Dolphy s performances on alto saxophone, flute, and bass
clarinet. Eric Dolphy was perhaps jazz s first true
multi-instrumentalist and a pioneer of avant-garde technique. He is also
widely remembered by those who knew him as a kind, gracious human
being. In Jazz Revolutionary, his artistic accomplishments, his
friendships and family life, and his timeless music are brought together
in one place for the first time.
