[.ca] V1 At The Five Spot W/Booker

From Amazon.com:
If you want to get a taste of Eric Dolphy live then this is the set to get. Certainly the Coltrane Village Vanguard sessions featuring Dolphy are masterpieces; however, he has more room to blow in this setting. Dolphy, for all his unique and decidedly individual style, was a remarkably emphatic player. His associations with Coltrane and Charles Mingus, and here with Mal Waldron, are truly special instances of jazz players complimenting and enriching each other's playing. Dolphy and Waldron are joined here by Booker Little, Richard Davis, and Ed Blackwell. This is a band of masters on a hot night. It's joyous listening. --Michael Monhart

awesome stuff:
This CD is a must have for anyone interested in free jazz. Booker Little plays with such ingenuity!

Note to the musically critical thinker::
The Five Spot itself has a long tradition of hosting incredible names in music. The ambiance as i am sure we all could imagine was quite amazing to inspire the musicians it did as it did. But the fact of the matter remains that the recording acoustics of the venue were not as good as the actual place itself. Consequently some of the recordings didn't turn out as good that are from there. Anyone truly interested in music will just glance at this fact briefly and move along to buying the album. That is exatly what I did! Thanks to the insight however on Mal Waldron's accompanyment. That was very useful information. also: I own and have heard several Five Spot albums, and some of them are of lesser quality, but the music sreams for attention! One of these is John Coltrane Live at the Five Spot, a tricky one to find and the recording quality is awful but is worth it in every way.

I don't know what Pharaoh was listening to...:
Buy all the Five Spot material, sit back and let these guys take you through a wild ride. It sounds like a blowing session, you bet! That is what they do up and down, around and around, and inside-out. Get these sessions!

Eric Dolphy this is Tight:
I Happen to catch an older episode of B.E.T. on Jazz & this Episode had a Story on this Musician Eric Dolphy.i went to a Local Store & Heard different things on him.i figured i'd check out this Collection.Why? Because back in the day when you had Real Chops & Skills you took it to the stage.that was the Place that Mattered.This Set Highlights The Great Playing of Eric Dolphy & His Group.it's a Great Start from one of The Many Great Jazz Musicians of Our Time.the Band is Tight.Check it out A.S.A.P.

Both good and bad:
My opinions of this cd run hot and cold. It's worth getting but I don't consider it to be a truly essential Dolphy recording to own. I think part of this is due to the sound. Davis is an excellent bass player but he is so low in the mix on this cd that you never get a chance to find out how good he is. I must make special mention of Mal Waldron's piano playing. I agree with one of the previous reviewers who said that the out-of-tune piano actually works in this setting. Waldron has such a unique way of constructing his solo's. Sometimes when I listen to him I almost feel like he knows exactly what he will be playing 1 minute from now. His solo's aren't just licks played over the tunes. Every idea he has is rooted in what he just played. Whereas some players seem to play so "in this moment" that they seem to disregard what they played 15 seconds ago, all of Waldron's idea's seem to keep building, repeating, mutating, and twisting out of the things he just played. One of the truly underrated players of his generation. He shines on this cd from beginning to end. I guess my main complaint about this cd would be that, aside from Waldron's superbly constructed solo's, this cd is really just an elongated blowing session. Whereas something like Andrew Hill's "Point Of Departure" (of which Dolphy is a huge part) is a cohesive band playing and delving into the heart and soul of the compositions, the band on this cd is just taking turns soloing. Sometimes the solo's seem to be based in the feel of the tune, sometimes they don't. In one sense though that in itself makes this an important document of this period of Dolphy and Little's development. I think at this time they were both still very much working and extending on their own idea's of what they could do. Let's face it, neither one of these two great musicians was done and had reached their "peak development" when they died, so at this stage I think they were more concerned with how they could technically relate to the chords, keys, meters, etc... of the given song and work their way through those things, rather than focusing on producing a cohesive whole. I mean, Dolphy is an all-out virtuoso here, certainly a master of his horns, something about this band just feels "transition" to me... farther out than Dolphy bands were before, but not quite where he wants his bands to be yet. I usually describe this cd as "a straight-ahead jazz cd led by two very non-straight-ahead players, Dolphy and Little". Dolphy is certainly dreaming bigger on this cd than he was on earlier Prestige recordings, but I don't feel that this group is entirely successful. Having said that though, yes, there are moments of greatness from everyone in the band, and if you're like me and have most or everything Dolphy ever recorded then you'll certainly hear some great moments on this cd, but I don't think you'll say this is one of the truly spectacular recordings by a Dolphy band (or band in which he was a side man).

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