Eric Dolphy's album Out To Lunch is still one of the most exciting jazz albums ever recorded. I'm starting this new blog to celebrate what might be the very first warm day of the season here in Chicago. Out To Lunch is an all-out sonic assault, and on every cut Dolphy's caterwaul, at times, sounds nearly like a wounded animal. On Out To Lunch, Dolphy has taken the listener into the stratosphere and far from the comfortable and familiar territory explored by legends like Bix Beiderbecke and Frankie Trumbauer on classics like "Singin' the Blues." Out To Lunch shows the huge chasm between straight ahead jazz and outside jazz more than other classic avant albums like Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come, because Dolphy retains what he learned from playing with Charles Mingus, (i.e., free improvisation still needs some shred of a traditional rhythm section to serve as a homebase for all those intergalactic flights). Without this foundation, the players in any free jazz session are left without any real leader and the listener is left in the lurch, too. Think of some of the least successful moments on Free Jazz, the landmark album by the Ornette Coleman quartet. Although Dolphy shines throughout each cut on this particular jazz classic, there is something about his solos on Out To Lunch that seems to resonate on a much deeper level. If anyone is even reading what I'm writing here, I'll ask a few questions next. Jazz music provides the listener with reward, but it takes some effort. As America's only indigenous art form, jazz truly does necessitate appreciation and not passive enjoyment. Why is that such a turn off for many listeners? Players like Dolphy were especially misunderstood because their art took them places and they followed. Some might say they left the audience behind, but more importantly there are times when listening to the experimentation of greats like Dolphy, Ornette Coleman, or John Coltrane gives the listener something more complex and enjoyable than whatever listening to classic tracks like Beiderbecke's "Singin the Blues" might provide. Of course, this is just the tip of the syncopated iceberg and there are straight ahead players and free jazz players too numerous to name. Anyone interested in jazz should definitely listen to those mentioned, along with Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, and Marion Brown. But however your taste runs, if you're not listening to jazz, you really are Out To Lunch. Do some jazz homework. Download "Singin' the Blues," "Hat and Beard," off Out To Lunch, "West End Blues" by Louis Armstrong, and "Lonely Woman," by Ornette Coleman to see how far jazz has come. Who knows where jazz will be in the next twenty years? Wherever it lands it'll be unique, exciting, and completely American.

Thurston's free jazz top ten is worth a read, too. Check it out.