Eric Dolphy was a true original with his own distinctive styles on alto, flute, and bass clarinet. His music fell into the “avant-garde” category yet he did not discard chordal improvisation altogether (although the relationship of his notes to the chords was often pretty abstract). While most of the other “free jazz” players sounded very serious in their playing, Dolphy’s solos often came across as ecstatic and exuberant. His improvisations utilized very wide intervals, a variety of nonmusical

Remembering the great Eric Dolphy who was born this week in 1928. Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence in the same era. His use of the bass clarinet helped to establish the instrument within jazz and extended the vocabulary and boundaries of the alto saxophone. He was also among the earliest significant jazz flute soloists. Besides his thorough mastery of these woodwinds, he introduced an unprecedented range of unique expressive techniques on them. Dolphy discovere