Eric Dolphy - The Complete Prestige Recordings (1995)

Eric Dolphy, like Clifford Brown, was a musical angel, who made the most of his short stay on Earth. One of the great musical innovators of the 20th century, Dolphy was a wailing, fearless spirit with impeccable instrumental skills, and an authentic jazz pedigree, just as much at home in swing and bop settings as we was in avant garde and classical contexts. Over the course of nine discs, Eric Dolphy: The Complete Prestige Recordings documents his growth as a composer and improviser, both as a leader and a sideman. Dolphy could do it all, with a phenomenal technical and emotional command of the reed and woodwind family, most prominently alto sax, flute, and bass clarinet (an instrument he elevated into an archetypal jazz voice, as evidenced by his speech-like turns of phrase on an unaccompanied "God Bless the Child"). Among a rich buffet of highlights, his studio recordings with Roy Haynes and Jaki Byard are standouts, but it's his spiritual partnership with the youthful trumpet titan Booker Little (on the studio recording of Far Cry and their legendary live sets at Manhattan's Five Spot) that produce this box's most compelling moments. --Chip Stern