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REMASTERS AT THE FIVE SPOT, VOL. 2 l


ERIC DOLPHY
ERIC DOLPHY flute (#2), bass clarinet (#1, 4), alto saxophone (#3) BOOKER LITTLE trumpet
MAL WALDRON piano RICHARD DAVIS bass ED BLACKWELL drums
1 AGGRESSION 17:23
2 LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE 19:59
3 NUMBER EIGHT (POTSA LOTSA)* 15:33
4 BOOKER’S WALTZ* 14:39
*bonus tracks

I remember the sessions well, I remember how the musicians wanted to sound, and I remember their reactions to the playbacks.
Today, I feel strongly that I am their messenger. —RUDY VAN GELDER

Recorded by RUDY VAN GELDER in performance at the Five Spot, New York City; July 16, 1961
Supervision by ESMOND EDWARDS Remastering, 2009—RUDY VAN GELDER (Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ)
All transfers were made from the analog master tapes to digital at 24-bit resolution.
Notes by NEIL TESSER

www.concordmusicgroup.com • Prestige Records, Tenth and Parker, Berkeley, CA 94710.


P & C 2009, Concord Music Group, Inc., 100 North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. All rights reserved.
ERIC DOLPHY AT THE FIVE SPOT, VOL. 2 AGGRESSION
ERIC DOLPHY flute (#2), bass clarinet (#1, 4), alto saxophone (#3) LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE
BOOKER LITTLE trumpet MAL WALDRON piano NUMBER EIGHT (POTSA LOTSA)*
BOOKER’S WALTZ*
RICHARD DAVIS bass ED BLACKWELL drums
*bonus tracks
The music of Eric Dolphy and Booker Little (the latter died of uremia in October of 1961 areas where Dolphy, Little, and Blackwell were taking theirs. consumed everything, all that has been before and then advanced it all, and I don’t not an A and it’s not a B flat, it’s between them and in places you can employ that and I
at the age of twenty three, only several months after the engagement at the Five Spot Still, as the music in this album will witness, Dolphy and Little were surmounting think Ornette has consumed everything, though I’m sure he’s heard it. I do think what think it has great values. Or say the clash of a B natural against a B flat.
which this series of albums documents) is representative of the new energy, the new both the outwardly imposed obstacles and those that are developed within. There are Ornette’s doing is part of what jazz will become. “I’m interested in putting sounds against sounds and I’m interested in freedom also.
dynamism, in jazz. moments on both “Like Someone in Love” and “Aggression” when they fly free. As “My background has been conventional and maybe because of that I haven’t But I have respect for form. I think sections of a piece can sometimes be played, say on a
Revolutionary movements, such as the one which is now taking place in jazz, are Goldberg also observes of the group, “In format, it was a standard quintet of the kind become a leftist, though my ideas and tastes now might run left to a certain degree. I basic undersound which doesn’t limit the soloist. You wouldn’t necessarily tell him how
the result of independent artists who, having found themselves constructed within the that the bop era had made traditional—saxophone (Dolphy is heard playing alto sax on think the emotional aspect of music is the most important. A lot of guys, and I’ve been many choruses to take. You say ‘You blow awhile. You try and build your story and
conventional order of the time, are coming to similar conclusions about the nature and Volume 1), trumpet, and three rhythm—but the music hinted at developments going far guilty of this too, put too much stress on the technical, and that’s not hard to do when resolve it.’
the possibilities of a new order. In jazz, as Martin Williams has pointed out, this would beyond that concept.” you’ve learned how to play in school. I think this goes along with why a lot of trumpet “There are a lot of people who think the new direction should be to abolish form
seem to happen every twenty years or so. Inevitably the new order will become the Dolphy was very pleased with this group which he co-led with his friend Booker, but players have come up lately sounding one way—like Clifford Brown. They say and others who feel that it should be to unite ‘classical’ forms with jazz. The relationship
new convention and it will then be necessary for a new movement to begin so that surprise which only survived the two week duration of the Five Spot gig. “I think the rhythm everyone’s imitating him now and that’s true in a way and in a way it isn’t. Clifford was a between ‘classical’ and jazz is close, but I don’t think you have to employ a ‘classical’
may be rediscovered and the art revitalized. section was very good. There were three different kinds of cats and everybody was flashy trumpet player who articulated very well. He started a kind of trumpet playing technique as such to get some thing that jells. I think the main reason a lot of people are
Unfortunately change is resisted because it frequently requires a painful listening very close to everybody else—everything balanced. And Booker . . . Booker that’s partly an outgrowth of Fats Navarro—insofar as having a big sound, articulating going into it is because jazz hasn’t developed as far as composition is concerned. It’s
reevaluation of what reality is. The innovator must deal not only with the hostility of the was one of the true giants and geniuses that was never recognized when he was alive. well all over the instrument and having an even sound from top to bottom. Most of the usually a twelve bar written segment and then everybody goes for themselves.
threatened establishment and the unwillingness of the audience to abandon its We played ‘Like Someone in Love’ because he really liked that tune . . . He had a lot of younger guys, like myself, who started playing in school, they’d have the instructor Personally, I don’t think it’s necessary to do either of these things to really accomplish
preconceptions of what music is supposed to sound like, of what a painting must look love in him . . . I like that tune too.” driving at them, ‘Okay, you gotta have a big sound, you gotta have this and that.’ something different and new. And I think sometimes a conscious effort to do something
like, of what literature can, and cannot, say, but also with the conventional, the “Aggression” which is Little’s number and which is constructed of a twice repeated Consequently if they came in sounding like Miles, which is beautiful for jazz, they flunked different and new isn’t as good as a natural effort.
sanctioned and the safe, that would paralyze him at the moment at which he arrives at eight bar phrase for the soloist to play off of was the “kind of thing Booker was working the lessons. They turned toward someone else then, like Clifford. Donald Byrd is a “In my own work I’m particularly interested in the possibilities of dissonance. If it’s a
his originality. on. A piece as a basis for freedom for the soloist.” Dolphy recalls that Booker was schooled trumpet player and though he’s away from that now he’ll never really be able consonant sound it’s going to sound smaller. The more dissonance, the bigger the sound.
Dolphy and Little were coping with these counter forces at the time these albums frequently in considerable physical pain during these sessions, but that his involvement to throw it out of his mind.” It sounds like more horns; in fact, you can’t always tell how many more there are. And
were recorded. These forces resulted in ambivalences which were compounded in Little’s with the music enabled him to nearly forget it. It is likely that Booker was talking as much about himself, when he made this latter your shadings can be more varied. Dissonance is a tool to achieve these things.
case because he was not quite free of his conservatory background—not free in the Some of the things Booker said to me in a Metronome interview, conducted in the statement, as he was about Byrd. “Most people who don’t listen often, say jazz is a continuous pounding and this is
sense that he was not yet completely able to make use of it without becoming restricted spring of 1961 have, I think, a great deal of relevance to the music in these albums (and “Those who have no idea about how ‘classical’ music is constructed are definitely at something I can feel too. I think there are so many emotions that can’t be expressed with
by it because so much of what he had learned in the conservatory was antithetical to to much of what is happening in the entire contemporary movement in jazz)—Booker’s a loss—it’s a definite foundation. I don’t think it should be carried to the point where that going on. There are certain feelings that you might want to express that you could
what he saw music could also be. For Dolphy, who had come East from Los Angeles with perspective, what he was attempting to realize in his music, what was holding him back, you have to say this is this kind of phrase and this is that kind of development. Deep in probably express better if you didn’t have that beat. Up until now if you wanted to
Chico Hamilton some three years before, there was, it would seem, still the problem of and what, indeed, he was coming to transcend. our mind though, you should maintain these thoughts and not just throw a phrase in express a sad or moody feeling you would play the blues. But it can be done in other
adapting to the fierce competitiveness of the New York scene where so much is always “I think it’s very good that Ornette Coleman and some other people have come on without it answering itself or leading to something else. Say I know the chord I want the ways.”
happening, all at once—the problem under the uniquely difficult New York the scene. Ornette has his own ideas about what makes what and I don’t think it’s proper piano player to play and I give it to him. But the other instruments won’t necessarily be Little and Dolphy were engaged in exploring some of the “other ways” those
circumstances, of getting his “thing together.” to put him down. I do think it’s okay to talk about what his music has and what it doesn’t playing that chord. Most of the guys who are thinking completely conventionally— summer evenings in 1961 at the Five Spot. Booker did not live to fully realize his
The ambivalences are also made evident, to an extent, by the members of the have. I have more conventional ideas about what makes what than he does, but I think I they’d say, ‘Well maybe you’ve got a wrong note in there.’ But I can’t think in terms of ambition. Dolphy, of course, has continued to mature and he is now a very real force in
rhythm section who with the exception of Eddie Blackwell who worked with Ornette understand clearly what he’s doing, and it’s good. It’s an honest effort. It’s like a guy who wrong notes—in fact I don’t hear any notes as being wrong. It’s a matter of knowing contemporary jazz. These albums are valuable historically, but more important they are
Coleman, illustrate both the point of Dolphy’s and Little’s departure and (by their puts sponges on his feet, steps in paint and then smears it on the canvas. If he really feels how to integrate the notes and, if you must, how to resolve them. Because if you insist testimony to the productivity of a close personal and professional friendship. They
presence) the necessity to control and make tentative that departure. Dolphy and Little it that way, that’s it. At one end you have a guy who does it from a purely intellectual that this note or that note is wrong I think you’re thinking completely conventionally— document the early stages of two musicians’ journey into what life really sounds like.
were couched in an orthodoxy by the rhythm section. Pianist Mal Waldron (whom critic aspect and at the other a guy who does it from a purely emotional aspect. Sometimes technically, and forgetting about emotion. And I don’t think anyone would deny that
Joe Goldberg accurately referred to, as a “stabilizing influence”) and bassist Richard both arrive at the same thing. I think Bird was more intellectual in his playing than more emotion can be reached and expressed outside of the conventional diatonic way of — ROBERT LEVIN
Davis, are exciting, exploratory and often brilliant musicians and these remarks are not Ornette is. I think Ornette puts down whatever he feels. But I think both ways have playing which consist of whole steps and half steps. There’s more emotion that can be These notes appeared on
intended to derogate them, but only to say that they were not taking their music to those worth, though I don’t believe Ornette himself has the worth of a Charlie Parker. Bird expressed by the notes that are played flat. Say it’s a B flat, but you play it flat and it’s the original album liner.
I WAS THE ENGINEER on the recording sessions and I also made the masters for In Booker Little, Dolphy had found his perfect partner; just as Charlie Parker had cleaved to Dizzy Gillespie, or Cannonball
the original LP issues of these albums. Since the advent of the CD, other people have Adderley to his brother Nat. The trumpeter brought the sound and facility of Clifford Brown to bear on a music that made quite
been making the masters. Mastering is the final step in the process of creating the sound of different demands from those of bebop; his opening solo on this set (on his own tune, “Aggression”) looses a galvanizing cascade of
the finished product. Now, thanks to the folks at the Concord Music Group who have given clear melody, elliptical development, and pure showmanship. Like Dolphy, he worked as an “inside man” in expanding the jazz
me the opportunity to remaster these albums, I can present my versions of the music on CD envelope, though we can only guess at how that might have changed had he lived longer. As it was, Little offered some expansive
using modern technology. I remember the sessions well, I remember how the musicians interviews in the year before his death (from uremia, at the age of 23); and in fact his unexpectedly mature comments formed the
wanted to sound, and I remember their reactions to the playbacks. Today, I feel strongly basis of the original liner essays for this music.
that I am their messenger. — RUDY VAN GELDER In one of those interviews, he offered a valuable insight into his and Dolphy’s methodology. “I’m particularly interested in the
possibilities of dissonance,” Little stated. “If it’s a consonant sound, it’s going to sound smaller. The more dissonance, the bigger the
sound.” You can hear that principle at work on “Aggression.” The two horns play the first six notes of the simplistic melody in unison
(consonance), but they separate by a half-tone on the seventh note—and the song suddenly and briefly expands. “I can’t think in
AT T HE FIVE SPOT, VO L . 2 REVISITED terms of wrong notes,” Little added in that same interview (with Robert Levin a few months before this recording), and he could have
been speaking for Dolphy as well: “In fact I don’t hear any notes as being wrong. It’s just a matter of knowing how to integrate the
notes and, if you must, how to resolve them.”
TELL THE TRUTH: if there’s anything you would change about this disc it’s the piano. Right? It’s the first thing The rhythm section for this quintet meshed well, but they certainly didn’t play with one mind; in fact, it’s the sharp differences in
everyone would change—not the pianist, but the piano itself. their outlook that provide so much of the crackling energy. Bassist Richard Davis infused his rhythmic largesse with a crisp and
In mid-July of 1961, the New York Times reported that the city—home of the Five Spot, where this short-lived quintet played classically trained virtuosity: his solos here offer a mesmerizing reminder of why his early work created such a stir in New York, on
its one and only engagement—was experiencing warmer than usual temperatures. Pianos hate extremes of temperature. In this and subsequent recordings by both Dolphy and Andrew Hill. Ed Blackwell, still a member of Ornette Coleman’s quartet at the time
addition, heavy rainstorms had pummeled the metropolitan area the day before this recording, with clouds and scattered storms of this recording, could travel as far as Dolphy cared to go while retaining the playful lope of his native New Orleans. And at the
continuing the next few days; we can guess that the humidity played its part in sapping the piano strings of their necessary tension. piano sat Mal Waldron, a veteran of bands led by Billie Holiday on the one hand and Charles Mingus on the other—the most
Whatever the reason, Mal Waldron found himself playing what may be the most ferociously, obtrusively, and at times comically conventional jazz player in the ensemble. Despite the flawed instrument, Waldron soldiered on, bringing simplicity and ballast to the
out-of-tune piano on any major jazz recording of the last 60 years. group dynamic: he appears to have resisted any urge to tailor his solos to the piano’s limitations, doggedly plucking the most
Over the years, as history has increasingly lionized these performances, the problem of the piano has grown proportionally. offending strings when the music took him there.So yes, we return to the piano. Among other things, it helps make this album
Less than three months after the Five Spot date, trumpeter Booker Little died: the first among equals in this band, he shared with a paradox: although the music still sounds flush with the excitement of discovery, it also exists firmly in its historical moment—and
Eric Dolphy an encyclopedic command of form and technique, and a commitment to shared musical ideals. Little’s death placed the nothing reminds us of that more than the piano’s flawed tuning, which yanks a listener from the sublimation of Dolphy’s rough-hewn
heavy stamp of mortality on this one-and-only collaboration between musical soulmates, marred as it was by the piano clinkers. gossamer to the earthbound concerns of wood and humidity and shoddy workmanship. The first time I heard these tracks, the
Less than three years after that, Dolphy himself was dead, predictably raising the stakes on any music he had recorded, let alone a discordance amazed and appalled me; I imagine anyone hearing these tracks for the first time has a similar reaction. One wonders
once-in-his-lifetime quintet—and further raising the hackles of those who bemoaned the interruptive intonation by the hapless for all the world how this music might have sounded if only the piano . . . .
piano. Well, as it turns out, there does exist a standard for comparison. In 1986, for the 25th anniversary of Dolphy’s Five Spot
That night at the Five Spot, the Dolphy-Little quintet recorded ten tunes. Four of them (including one alternate take) appeared appearance, this same rhythm section—Mal Waldron, Richard Davis, and Ed Blackwell—reunited at Sweet Basil (the Greenwich
on the New Jazz label as Eric Dolphy at the Five Spot. The first two tunes heard here arrived later as Volume 2 on Prestige; Village jazz club now known as Sweet Rhythm) to re-create the music. The young hornmen Donald Harrison and Terence Blanchard
“Number Eight (Potsa Lotsa)” and “Booker’s Waltz,” included here as bonus tracks, first appeared on Memorial Album; and the adopted the roles of Dolphy and Little, and they played with studied abandon; the real point, though, is that Waldron got to play
remaining two, “God Bless the Child” and “Status Seeking,” were issued posthumously on Dolphy’s Here and There, also on some of these same tunes on an in-tune piano.
Prestige. (This reissue allows the chance to correct a longstanding discographical error. Just about anyplace you look it up, Dolphy’s But despite the polished performances—and as much satisfaction as it probably provided to hear three-fifths of this quintet
catalog shows Here and There as having been released in 1960—quite a feat, considering that it contains two tracks not recorded performing songs like “Aggression” and “Booker’s Waltz”—it doesn’t sound quite right. Over the years, through countless hearings
until July 1961. In fact, the LP version of Here and There actually came out in 1966, some two years after Dolphy’s death.)By of the Five Spot tracks, the sad and tacky state of that piano has become integrated into the music itself, in much the way classic solos
1961, after his stint with Charles Lloyd, and having participated in Ornette Coleman’s historic Free Jazz recording, Dolphy had worm their way into the fabric of the songs containing them. Duke Ellington had to write Ray Nance’s trumpet solo from the original
started to emerge as a full-fledged innovator, offering an approach to musical freedom altogether different from those taken by recording “Take The ‘A’ Train” into the arrangement, because any other solo sounded wrong; and each time you hear a modern
Coleman and John Coltrane. For Dolphy, “free(ing) jazz” meant expanding the bounds of improvisation from within the hornman play the theme of Miles Davis’s “So What,” you can’t help but expect to hear the first few notes of Miles’s solo. And when I
tradition, instead of attacking those strictures from outside the gates. On all three of his instruments—alto sax, flute, and bass hear Waldron hammering those unintentionally discordant clusters on “Number Eight” (right around 7:50 into tune), I can no longer
clarinet (a rarely heard instrument at the time)—Dolphy pushed against not just the boundaries of improvisation but those of imagine that it would or should or could have sounded any different.
technique as well. As a result, he challenged the prevailing notions of expressivity and beauty, while attaining a style that could The ear remembers what the mind has tried to forget; and in the end, the first thing I’d change about Dolphy’s Five Spot recordings
faithfully mimic the full variety and nuance of the vox humana. (This proved especially true on flute, where his innovative is something I wouldn’t change after all. Like the rest of the music recorded in that summer of ’61, the club’s hinky piano is part of
technique allowed him to give full vent to the burly musical ideas he explored on his other horns—firmly establishing the history, all bound together in the heat of the moment and the rush of creation.
instrument in the realm of avant-garde improvisation.)

—NEIL TESSER
January 2009
RUDY VAN GELDER REMASTERS PRS-31339 (P-7294)

ERIC DOLPHY—Out There (PRCD-8101) ROY HAYNES/PHINEAS NEWBORN/


GENE AMMONS—Boss Tenor (PRCD-8102) PAUL CHAMBERS—We Three (PRCD-30162)
JOHN COLTRANE—Lush Life (PRCD-8103) TADD DAMERON WITH JOHN COLTRANE—
Mating Call (PRCD-30163)
MILES DAVIS—Relaxin’ with the Miles Davis Quintet (PRCD-8104)
THELONIOUS MONK TRIO (PRCD-30164)
SONNY ROLLINS—Saxophone Colossus (PRCD-8105)
ANDY AND THE BEY SISTERS—'Round Midnight (PRCD-30165) 1 AGGRESSION 17:23 ERIC DOLPHY flute (#2), bass clarinet (#1,
COLEMAN HAWKINS—The Hawk Relaxes (PRCD-8106)
ART FARMER—Farmer's Market (PRCD-30166) (Booker Little) Hendon Music, Inc. o/b/o Second Floor Music-BMI 4), alto saxophone (#3)
KENNY BURRELL & JOHN COLTRANE (PRCD-8107)
MILES DAVIS QUINTET—Steamin' (PRCD-30167) BOOKER LITTLE trumpet
KENNY DORHAM—Quiet Kenny (PRCD-8108) 2 LIKE SOMEONE IN LOVE 19:59
JOHN COLTRANE—Stardust (PRCD-30168) MAL WALDRON piano
RED GARLAND—Red Garland’s Piano (PRCD-8109) (Van Heusen-Burke) Bourne Co./Burke & Van Heusen Division/
RED GARLAND—Soul Junction (PRCD-30169) RICHARD DAVIS bass
THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET—Django (PRCD-8110)
MILES DAVIS—Bags’ Groove (PRCD-30645) Dorsey Brothers Music, a div. of Music Sales Corp.-ASCAP
JOHN COLTRANE—Soultrane (PRCD-30006) ED BLACKWELL drums
JOHN COLTRANE—Settin’ the Pace (PRCD-30646)
ETTA JONES—Don’t Go to Strangers (PRCD-30007) Bonus Tracks
SONNY ROLLINS—Rollins Plays for Bird (PRCD-30647)
MILES DAVIS ALL STARS—Walkin’ (PRCD-30008) Recorded by RUDY VAN GELDER at the Five Spot, New York City;
RON CARTER WITH ERIC DOLPHY 3 NUMBER EIGHT (POTSA LOTSA) 15:33
EDDIE “LOCKJAW” DAVIS—Cookbook, vol. 1 (PRCD-30009)
AND MAL WALDRON—Where? (PRCD-30648)
July 16, 1961.
THELONIOUS MONK & SONNY ROLLINS (PRCD-30010) (Eric Dolphy) Prestige Music-BMI
EDDIE “LOCKJAW” DAVIS/COLEMAN HAWKINS/
MOSE ALLISON—Mose Allison Sings (PRCD-30011) ARNETT COBB/BUDDY TATE—Very Saxy (PRCD-30649) Supervision by Esmond Edwards
4 BOOKER’S WALTZ 14:39
YUSEF LATEEF—Eastern Sounds (PRCD-30012) JOHN COLTRANE—Dakar (PRCD-30650) (Booker Little) Hendon Music, Inc. o/b/o Second Floor Music-BMI
OLIVER NELSON—Screamin’ the Blues (PRCD-30013) MILES DAVIS—The Musings of Miles (PRCD-30651) Remastering, 2009—Rudy Van Gelder
RICHARD “GROOVE” HOLMES—Soul Message (PRCD-30014) RED GARLAND TRIO—Groovy (PRCD-30652) (Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ)
JACK MCDUFF—The Honeydripper (PRCD-30035) THE MODERN JAZZ QUARTET—Concorde (PRCD-30653)
SONNY ROLLINS QUARTET—Tenor Madness (PRCD-30044) SONNY CRISS—This Is Criss! (PRCD-30654) Reissue produced by Nick Phillips and Bob Porter
MILES DAVIS QUINTET—Workin’ (PRCD-30080) MILES DAVIS—Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants (PRCD-30655) Reissue production assistance—Chris Clough, Joe Tarantino
COLEMAN HAWKINS—At Ease (PRCD-30081) ERIC DOLPHY WITH BOOKER LITTLE—
At the Five Spot, vol. 1 (PRCD-30656) Editorial—Rikka Arnold
CHARLES EARLAND—Black Talk! (PRCD-30082)
JOHN COLTRANE—Black Pearls (PRCD-30657) Additional assistance—Abbey Anna, Larissa Collins, Evelyn Haddad, Andrew Pham
ERIC DOLPHY—Outward Bound (PRCD-30083)
JACKIE MCLEAN—4, 5 and 6 (PRCD-30155) KENNY BURRELL WITH COLEMAN HAWKINS—
Bluesy Burrell (PRCD-30658)
JOHN COLTRANE WITH THE RED GARLAND TRIO—
Traneing In (PRCD-30156) BOOGALOO JOE JONES—Right On Brother (PRCD-30659)
MILES DAVIS QUINTET—Cookin’ (PRCD-30157) JOHN COLTRANE—Standard Coltrane (PRS-31221)
PAT MARTINO—El Hombre (PRCD-30158) MILES DAVIS—Collectors’ Items (PRS-31222)
SONNY ROLLINS—Plus Four (PRCD-30159) SONNY ROLLINS—Worktime (PRS-31223)
BOOKER ERVIN—The Freedom Book (PRCD-30160)
ROLAND KIRK WITH JACK MCDUFF—Kirk’s Work
(PRCD-30161)
ERIC DOLPHY—At The Five Spot, Vol.2 (PRS-31339)
JOHN COLTRANE—Coltrane (PRS-31341)
MILES DAVIS—Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet (PRS-31343)
l www.concordmusicgroup.com • Prestige Records, Tenth and Parker, Berkeley, CA 94710.
 &  2009, Concord Music Group, Inc., 100 North Crescent Drive, Beverly Hills, CA 90210. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.
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