Eric Dolphy

Nice clean vinyl with a good cover showing tear on right side of cover.

This posthumous compilation by the budget label Everest, billed under Eric Dolphy's name, is puzzling, as it is titled Guest Artist Cannonball Adderley (though they misspelled the guest's last name, and the two men never recorded together), giving the impression that the two of them appear together. What this LP actually consists of is excerpts of three separate unrelated recording sessions: two songs from one of Dolphy's 1963 Douglas LPs, a single song from a 1959 Vee-Jay date led by Paul Chambers with Cannonball Adderley as a sideman, and a 1958 Vee-Jay session jointly led by trombonist Bennie Green and alto saxophonist Gene Ammons fronting an octet including Tommy Flanagan, Frank Wess, Frank Foster, and cornetist Nat Adderley (but not his brother)! The rather generic liner notes by Leonard Feather sound as if they were copied from an article about Dolphy, since they don't discuss any of the sessions present. Dolphy plays flute on a rather dissonant take of Fats Waller's "Jitterbug Waltz" in a quintet with vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson and trumpeter Woody Shaw. Prince Lasha's "Music Matador," a Latin-flavored original featuring the composer on flute and Dolphy's bass clarinet, is less memorable. Dolphy is not present on the remaining tracks, which include Gene Ammons' "Juggin' Around" and Frank Wess' "Little Ditty." Cannonball Adderley is heard only on "Awful Mean," an original blues he contributed to one of Chambers' earliest dates as a leader. While the music is enjoyable, none of the tracks is particularly remarkable. In any case, it is pointless to search for this LP, as all of the complete sessions have long since been individually reissued as separate discs.