How does the music make you feel, man?

In the midst of the L.A. Riots, jazz instrumentalist Eric Dolphy blasts through the headphones of Nick Scoby.  "I feel like I'm dry heaving while free free-falling from fifteen thousand feet" is Gunnar's description of the style.  His description is scarily accurate.  Dolphy is considered to be on the forefront of "free jazz."  For example, his tune "Out There" is definitely free.  Free-falling and trainwrecking.  (In a good way, though!)

Dolphy acts outside the limits of jazz.  In "Out There," dissonance is everywhere and  key signatures are so hard to identify that many times throughout the song you get a sense of atonality.  It creates a really curious, cool, surreal effect.  Switching between flute, alto sax, and bass clarinet, this guy can do anything, and he does.  His goal was to make his instruments sound as close to human or animal as possible, playing on the music the occurs naturally.

One of the best ways to get to know someone is to look for patterns in the people he/she hangs out with.  Dolphy's two longest musical partners were Charles Mingus and John Coltrane.  Bassist Charles Mingus, as we discussed in class once upon a time, was a musical genius.  Very full of passion and emotion, Mingus enjoyed things such as moaning while playing and having everyone solo simultaneously.  It worked well for him; he's one of the few well-know bass players.  Then there's incredible tenor saxophonist John Coltrane.  Personally, he's one of my favorite artists.  Known for his abstract techniques and crazy speed, Coltrane loved to take advantage of multiphonics, overtones, screeches, and the altissimo register.  Basically, he experimented with his sax and regularly used methods and notes that there aren't keys for.  Magazines described Dolphy and Coltrane's combined works as "anti-jazz."  Eric Dolphy's two best friends were (lovably) crazy.  His music definitely reflects that.

What interests me most, though, about Eric Dolphy is his death.  In June of 1964, Dolphy collapsed on stage.  Everyone, including the doctors, assumed he was a drug addict and collapsed as a result of overdose, so they didn't bother testing him for anything else.  It turned out that he was a diabetic and had gone into a diabetic coma.  But the stereotype of black jazz musician drug addicts took over, and he was judged without a fair trial, without any tests, so he died.  It's a prime example of the way masks are automatically thrown up without a second thought that maybe there's something wrong.

All in all, Dolphy's one of the most influential, out-there jazz musicians to this day.  "Dolphy's horn matched the streetside cacophony flutter for flutter, screech for screech" (130).  His music was real.  It symbolized real life.  How does the music make me feel? Inspired.