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Eric Dolphy

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Also known as Eric Allan Dolphy

American jazz musician (1928–1964)

OverviewAI-generated

Eric Dolphy was a male musician from the United States whose career spanned from 1949 until his death in 1964. He is associated with the genres of avant-garde jazz, free jazz, hard bop, jazz, and jazz and blues, and is noted for playing the saxophone. His musical output includes the works "Live" 1961 and The Eric Dolphy Collection.

He has been referenced by 910 other encyclopedia articles. During his lifetime, he accumulated 2,678,223 plays and 264,958 listeners on Last.fm, where his music is tagged with jazz, free jazz, and Avant-Garde. He authored two works and is cited in five Crossref publications. Dolphy died on June 29, 1964, having been born on June 20, 1928.

Synthesized by Vinony from 20 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Last.fm, Crossref, Wikiquote, MusicBrainz, Open Library, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
2

Top works

  • "Live" 1961
  • The Eric Dolphy Collection

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Male
Origin
United States
Active from
1928-06-20
Active to
1964-06-29
avant-garde jazzfree jazzhard bopjazzjazz and bluesmodal jazz

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
264,958
Total plays
2,678,223

Tags

jazzfree jazzAvant-GardeAvant-Garde Jazzsaxophone

Eric Allan Dolphy (June 20, 1928 – June 29, 1964) was a jazz musician who played alto saxophone, flute and bass clarinet and was educated at Los Angeles City College. Dolphy was the first important bass clarinet soloist in jazz, and one of the first viable flute soloists in jazz. On early recordings, he occasionally played traditional B-flat clarinet. His unique and individual style utilized wide intervals, speech-like effects and exotic scales. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Eric+Dolphy">R

via Last.fm · Eric Dolphy

Key facts

Born
Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. , ( 1928-06-20 ) June 20, 1928, Los Angeles , California, U.S.
Died
June 29, 1964 (1964-06-29) (aged 36), West Berlin
Genres
Avant-garde jazz post-bop third stream free jazz
Occupations
Bandleader composer sideman
Instruments
Alto saxophone bass clarinet flute soprano clarinet baritone saxophone piccolo tenor saxophone
Years active
1949–1964
Labels
Prestige Blue Note Limelight
Formerly of
Charles Mingus John Coltrane Booker Little
Website
www .bluenote .com /artist /eric-dolphy /
Education
Los Angeles City College

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Allan
Gender
male
Citizenship
United States
Place of birth
Los Angeles
Place of death
West Berlin
Instrument
clarinet
Record label
Impulse!
Image
Eric Dolphy - Dorsey - 1947.jpg
Show 9 more facts
date of death
1964-06-29
date of birth
1928-06-20
cause of death
diabetes
Commons category
Eric Dolphy
manner of death
natural causes
start of work period
1949-00-00
birth name
Eric Allan Dolphy Jr.
name in native language
Eric Dolphy
end of work period
1964-00-00
Sources (5)

via Wikidata · CC0

~25 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Eric Allan Dolphy Jr. (June 20, 1928 – June 29, 1964) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and bandleader. Primarily an alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and flautist, Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence during the same era. His use of the bass clarinet helped to establish the unconventional instrument within jazz. Dolphy extended the vocabulary and boundaries of the alto saxophone, and was among the earliest significant jazz flute soloists.

His improvisational style was characterized by the use of wide intervals, in addition to employing an array of extended techniques to emulate the sounds of human voices and animals. He used melodic lines that were "angular, zigzagging from interval to interval, taking hairpin turns at unexpected junctures, making dramatic leaps from the lower to the upper register." Although Dolphy's work is sometimes classified as free jazz, his compositions and solos were often rooted in conventional (if highly abstracted) tonal bebop harmony.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Eric Dolphy” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.