Title: An acoustical appreciation of the extended performance aspects of Eric Dolphy’s musical craft
Abstract: The late 1950s and early 1960s was an era of rapid innovation in jazz in which musicians transformed the compositional and improvisional form of the music. While instrumentalists have incorporated extended performance techniques in a unique manner from the beginning of jazz, an important aspect of the avant garde movement was the breadth of innovation in woodwind instrument performance. Eric Dolphy was a pioneer in this respect, a virtuoso performer of the alto saxophone, bass clarinet, and flute, who helped bring the latter two instruments into prominence within jazz as solo instruments for improvisation. Literal acoustic distortion is present in woodwind multiphonics used by Dolphy and others, produced not merely by using unconventional fingerings and changes in embouchure, but also by alterations in the resonances of the player’s vocal tract [Wilson (1996)]. Aesthetic distortions include the sheer temporal complexity of melodic lines, which cannot be separately resolved by many listeners, and the inclusion of speechlike and bird-song elements within extended musical forms lacking a conventional harmonically related musical structure. Such factors contribute to the overall artistic impact of this music.
Publication Year: 1998
Publication Date: 1998-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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