SOUND PROJECTIONS
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER ONE
AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE
EDITOR: KOFI NATAMBU
SUMMER, 2016
VOLUME THREE NUMBER ONE
MARY LOU WILLIAMS
Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:
JULIUS HEMPHILL
June 18-24
ARTHUR BLYTHE
June 25-July 1
OSCAR BROWN, JR.
July 2-July 8
DONNIE HATHAWAY
July 9-July 15
EUGENE McDANIELS
July 16-July 22
ROBERTA FLACK
July 23-July 29
WOODY SHAW
July 30-August 5
FATS DOMINO
August 6-August 12
CLIFFORD BROWN
August 13-August 19
BLIND WILLIE McTELL
August 20-August 26
RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK
August 27-September 2
CHARLES BROWN
September 3-September 9
JULIUS HEMPHILL
June 18-24
ARTHUR BLYTHE
June 25-July 1
OSCAR BROWN, JR.
July 2-July 8
DONNIE HATHAWAY
July 9-July 15
EUGENE McDANIELS
July 16-July 22
ROBERTA FLACK
July 23-July 29
WOODY SHAW
July 30-August 5
FATS DOMINO
August 6-August 12
CLIFFORD BROWN
August 13-August 19
BLIND WILLIE McTELL
August 20-August 26
RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK
August 27-September 2
CHARLES BROWN
September 3-September 9
alto and soprano saxophonist and composer
(1938 - 1995)
For over thirty-five years Julius Hemphill earned a reputation as one who broke down boundaries and defied labels. A prodigious composer who wrote luscious and shimmering sonorities with the ever-present tang of the blues, Hemphill was as comfortable writing for full orchestra as he was for his Sextet or Big Band. He composed for theater and multi-media productions and worked with some of this generation’s most acclaimed writers and choreographers who sought his unifying consciousness for collaborative projects. An improviser of immense talent and saxophonist who could coax the best out of any musical unit, Hemphill performed in almost every major jazz festival and hall in North America and Europe, including the Berlin, Montreal, Kool, Rome, Paris, Den Haag (North Sea), and Warsaw festivals.
Born in 1938, Julius Hemphill divided his attention between music and sports while growing up in the fertile musical environment of Fort Worth, Texas. He gained experience playing in local blues bands and jazz groups and began focusing on his musical career in earnest after moving to St. Louis in 1966. In 1968, Hemphill joined the Black Artists Group (BAG), playing an instrumental role in developing this interdisciplinary performance collective that included future World Saxophone Quartet members Oliver Lake (alto) and Hamiet Bluiett (baritone). In the early 70s, the composer recorded two albums, “Dogon A.D.” and “Coon Bid’ness,” that were later released on the Arista/Freedom label.
Hemphill moved to New York in 1973 to continue his dance on the edge of free jazz. In 1976, he became the founding member and principal composer/arranger for the World Saxophone Quartet”a four-horn band which proved that saxophones could swing and sing without the support of a rhythm section. Hemphill’s performances with the WSQ can be heard on “World Saxophone Quartet Plays Duke Ellington” and “Dances and Ballads,” recorded for Elektra/Nonesuch, as well as “Rhythm & Blues,” recorded for Elektra/Musician.
After leaving the World Saxophone Quartet in 1989, Hemphill devoted more of his time to collaborative multi-media projects and expanded his compositional palette. The Julius Hemphill Sextet was first featured in Hemphill’s Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera, a multi-media composition with dancers, actors, and slide projections, built exclusively on instrumental music and loosely based on the history of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Club from 1943 to 1968. Developed from an earlier collaboration with District Curators and Malinke Robert Eliott, the work received its world premiere in Washington D.C. in 1989 and its New York premiere at the Apollo Theater in 1990.
The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land, composed for choreographer Bill T. Jones and featuring the Julius Hemphill Sextet, toured the United States and Europe with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Co. during the 1990-91 season to a chorus of raves. In 1991, Hemphill received a Bessie Award for each of his dance compositions, Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera and The Last Supper At Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land. (The Bessies, named for the highly regarded teacher of dance composition, Bessie Schonberg, are presented annually by Dance Theatre Workshop in recognition of outstanding achievement by a select few choreographers and performance artists.)
“Fat Man and the Hard Blues,” the Julius Hemphill Sextet’s recording debut, was released by Black Saint in 1992 and voted one of the top ten CDs of 1992 by Downbeat Magazine. Both “Live from the New Music Cafe,” featuring Hemphill’s unusual jazz trio collaboration with cellist Abdul Wadud and percussionist Joe Bonadio, and “The Oakland Duets,” featuring Hemphill and Wadud in duo, can be heard on the Music & Arts label. The 1992 December issue of Downbeat gave five stars to both Hemphill’s Sextet and Trio CDs. In 1994, JMT/Polydor KK released “Diminutive Mysteries” (Mostly Hemphill), a recording performed by one of Hemphill’s celebrated students, Tim Berne, and featuring compositions by Hemphill. In 1994, Black Saint released Hemphill’s second Sextet recording, “Five Chord Stud,” and in 1997 New World Records released “At Dr. King’s Table,” a CD of previously unrecorded Sextet music that Hemphill composed.
Recent commissions included “One Atmosphere (For Ursula),” a piano quintet premiered by the Arditti String Quartet and pianist Ursula Oppens in 1992, and “Plan B,” an orchestral work premiered by the Julius Hemphill Sextet and the Richmond Symphony in 1993. A Bitter Glory, a music-theater piece composed by Hemphill with libretto by New Orleans-based writer Dalt Wonk and commissioned by the Walker Art Center and the American Music Theater Festival, received a workshop performance in Minneapolis in December 1994. Hemphill had recently been commissioned by the Pacific Rim Players, with funds provided by the Meet The Composer Jazz Program, to write a new work for improvising ensemble (the Northwest Creative Orchestra), and pianist (Ursula Oppens). Julius Hemphill died on April 2, 1995. He was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame later that year.
For over thirty-five years Julius Hemphill earned a reputation as one who broke down boundaries and defied labels. A prodigious composer who wrote luscious and shimmering sonorities with the ever-present tang of the blues, Hemphill was as comfortable writing for full orchestra as he was for his Sextet or Big Band. He composed for theater and multi-media productions and worked with some of this generation’s most acclaimed writers and choreographers who sought his unifying consciousness for collaborative projects. An improviser of immense talent and saxophonist who could coax the best out of any musical unit, Hemphill performed in almost every major jazz festival and hall in North America and Europe, including the Berlin, Montreal, Kool, Rome, Paris, Den Haag (North Sea), and Warsaw festivals.
Born in 1938, Julius Hemphill divided his attention between music and sports while growing up in the fertile musical environment of Fort Worth, Texas. He gained experience playing in local blues bands and jazz groups and began focusing on his musical career in earnest after moving to St. Louis in 1966. In 1968, Hemphill joined the Black Artists Group (BAG), playing an instrumental role in developing this interdisciplinary performance collective that included future World Saxophone Quartet members Oliver Lake (alto) and Hamiet Bluiett (baritone). In the early 70s, the composer recorded two albums, “Dogon A.D.” and “Coon Bid’ness,” that were later released on the Arista/Freedom label.
Hemphill moved to New York in 1973 to continue his dance on the edge of free jazz. In 1976, he became the founding member and principal composer/arranger for the World Saxophone Quartet”a four-horn band which proved that saxophones could swing and sing without the support of a rhythm section. Hemphill’s performances with the WSQ can be heard on “World Saxophone Quartet Plays Duke Ellington” and “Dances and Ballads,” recorded for Elektra/Nonesuch, as well as “Rhythm & Blues,” recorded for Elektra/Musician.
After leaving the World Saxophone Quartet in 1989, Hemphill devoted more of his time to collaborative multi-media projects and expanded his compositional palette. The Julius Hemphill Sextet was first featured in Hemphill’s Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera, a multi-media composition with dancers, actors, and slide projections, built exclusively on instrumental music and loosely based on the history of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Club from 1943 to 1968. Developed from an earlier collaboration with District Curators and Malinke Robert Eliott, the work received its world premiere in Washington D.C. in 1989 and its New York premiere at the Apollo Theater in 1990.
The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land, composed for choreographer Bill T. Jones and featuring the Julius Hemphill Sextet, toured the United States and Europe with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Co. during the 1990-91 season to a chorus of raves. In 1991, Hemphill received a Bessie Award for each of his dance compositions, Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera and The Last Supper At Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land. (The Bessies, named for the highly regarded teacher of dance composition, Bessie Schonberg, are presented annually by Dance Theatre Workshop in recognition of outstanding achievement by a select few choreographers and performance artists.)
“Fat Man and the Hard Blues,” the Julius Hemphill Sextet’s recording debut, was released by Black Saint in 1992 and voted one of the top ten CDs of 1992 by Downbeat Magazine. Both “Live from the New Music Cafe,” featuring Hemphill’s unusual jazz trio collaboration with cellist Abdul Wadud and percussionist Joe Bonadio, and “The Oakland Duets,” featuring Hemphill and Wadud in duo, can be heard on the Music & Arts label. The 1992 December issue of Downbeat gave five stars to both Hemphill’s Sextet and Trio CDs. In 1994, JMT/Polydor KK released “Diminutive Mysteries” (Mostly Hemphill), a recording performed by one of Hemphill’s celebrated students, Tim Berne, and featuring compositions by Hemphill. In 1994, Black Saint released Hemphill’s second Sextet recording, “Five Chord Stud,” and in 1997 New World Records released “At Dr. King’s Table,” a CD of previously unrecorded Sextet music that Hemphill composed.
Recent commissions included “One Atmosphere (For Ursula),” a piano quintet premiered by the Arditti String Quartet and pianist Ursula Oppens in 1992, and “Plan B,” an orchestral work premiered by the Julius Hemphill Sextet and the Richmond Symphony in 1993. A Bitter Glory, a music-theater piece composed by Hemphill with libretto by New Orleans-based writer Dalt Wonk and commissioned by the Walker Art Center and the American Music Theater Festival, received a workshop performance in Minneapolis in December 1994. Hemphill had recently been commissioned by the Pacific Rim Players, with funds provided by the Meet The Composer Jazz Program, to write a new work for improvising ensemble (the Northwest Creative Orchestra), and pianist (Ursula Oppens). Julius Hemphill died on April 2, 1995. He was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame later that year.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/julius-hemphill-mn0000251078/biography
Artist Biography by Chris Kelsey
Hemphill was best known for his work with the World Saxophone Quartet
-- he was arguably the band's most distinctive writer -- but his work
as an improvising saxophonist and composer encompassed a variety of
other contexts over the course of his career. Hemphill worked with everything from big bands to duos; he especially excelled at composing for unusual instrumental combinations. Hemphill's
primary instrument was the alto; he had a huge, somewhat harsh tone,
almost as if he were playing a horn made out of a steel pipe with a sax
mouthpiece attached. He possessed a formidable technique and a fertile
imagination. The latter probably best manifested itself in his
compositions, in which he merged his jazz roots with European classical
and African influences.
Hemphill's first instrument was the clarinet. He played bari saxophone in high school; purportedly, he fostered a musical infatuation with Gerry Mulligan. In Fort Worth, he studied with the renowned jazz clarinetist John Carter and played with local rhythm & blues bands. Hemphill joined the army in 1964. Upon his discharge, he played for a time with Ike Turner, then moved to St. Louis in 1968. There he became involved with the Black Artists Group, a new music collective that also included Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, Joseph Bowie, and Baikida Carroll, among others. Hemphill formed his own record company, Mbari, to document his music. His '70s Mbari releases, Dogon A.D. and Blue Boyé, proved to be quite influential, affecting the later work of such disparate artists as Dave Sanborn and Tim Berne.
Hemphill moved to New York in the mid-'70s. There he became active in loft sessions and recorded as a sideman with Anthony Braxton and Lester Bowie. Around this time, he also recorded for the Arista/Freedom label. In 1976, he formed the World Saxophone Quartet with Lake, Bluiett, and David Murray, which would prove to be the most commercially successful and long-lasting of his performing units. In the '70s and '80s, Hemphill played and recorded fairly often for several labels, almost always under his own leadership. His 1980 album, Flat Out Jump Suite (Black Saint), with cellist Abdul Wadud, cornetist Olu Dara, and percussionist Warren Smith, was critically praised, as was his concurrent work with the WSQ. In the late '80s, Hemphill and the WSQ began an association with the Elektra label, which led to a number of well-distributed and aesthetically rewarding albums. In 1988, Hemphill got his one and only chance to record his big band compositions, on the album Julius Hemphill Big Band (Elektra/Musician).
Hemphill left the WSQ in the early '90s, thus weakening the ensemble from a conceptual standpoint. He went on to form his own all-sax group -- a sextet -- which included such players as Marty Ehrlich, Andrew White, and a young James Carter. The band made a pair of albums: Fat Man and the Hard Blues, recorded in 1991, and Five Chord Stud, recorded in 1993. Hemphill's presence on the latter was as a composer only; a worsening medical condition had by this time forced him to stop playing.
Hemphill
also had a strong interest in theatre. He incorporated theatrical
elements into his 1977 album Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels and in
the '80s he composed an extended work entitled Long Tongues, which he
called "a saxophone opera." Hemphill's death in 1995 prematurely curtailed the career of one of free jazz's most visionary composers.
Julius Hemphill
by Kofi Natambu
January 1, 2008
(b. January 24, 1938 --d. April 2, 1995)
An outstanding alto and tenor saxophonist, composer, and teacher, Julius Hemphill was born in Fort Worth, Texas, into a family about which little is known. What is known is that the Hemphill family included several ministers, a fact that fostered within Hemphill a religious belief that music represented an act of giving. Hemphill studied music in high school, focusing initially on the baritone saxophone, and later trained formally with John Carter, a jazz musician, composer, and music teacher, and graduated in 1956. He attended both North Texas State University in Denton, Texas, and Lincoln University in St. Louis, Missouri, between 1970 and 1972, studying alto and tenor saxophone, harmony, orchestration, and arrangement. He did not graduate from either institution, feeling that the classical world was not prepared for an African American. Besides his formal training, Hemphill gained professional experience playing with rhythm and blues bands in Fort Worth.
In 1964 Hemphill entered the U.S. Army and, after his two-year stint ended, he began playing with IkeTurner on a national tour with Turner's group. In 1966, he married, and in 1967 Hemphill moved to St. Louis, his wife's hometown where the Hemphills would eventually have two sons. He helped to revitalize St. Louis's once thriving jazz scene through the Black Artists Group (BAG), which he founded with the local musicians Hamiett Bluiett and Oliver Lake and many other musicians, poets, writers, painters, actors, and dancers. Much of St. Louis's homegrown talent had left to play in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago where more work was available. Jazz performance spaces had almost disappeared. BAG reenergized and promoted the African American artistic community. In 1968 BAG successfully lobbied for an Arts Council grant, which launched a community center providing musical training for children and adults, as well as performance spaces for BAG productions. This thriving artistic atmosphere played a significant role in Hemphill's career as a musician and composer over the next three decades.
Firmly committed to establishing complete artistic and economic control of his work, Hemphill founded Mbari Records in 1972 to record, publish, and distribute his work as a musician and composer. This emphasis on political, cultural, and economic self-determination was an integral part of BAG and many other 1960s and 1970s black artists and cultural activists. Equally influential was the radical, pioneering innovations of black avant-garde musicians and composers such as alto saxophonist, trumpeter, and violinist OrnetteColeman, also of Fort Worth, pianist-composer CecilTaylor, and tenor saxophonists and composers JohnColtrane and AlbertAyler. The aesthetic influence of these musicians and other free jazz players was apparent in many of Hemphill's own original compositions of the early 1970s when critics outside the Midwest began to notice his work for the first time. One of his major compositions was Dogon A. D., recorded in 1972 and later reissued by Arista's Freedom Records division. Hemphill continued pursuing his intense interest in multimedia and theater productions, making innovative contributions to the 1972 production of Kawaida. By the mid-1970s he appeared often on the college performance circuit and toured throughout the United States and abroad and had attained a solid reputation as an avant-garde composer and performer.
In late 1972 the BAG formally disbanded and Hemphill relocated to Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and two sons. He continued his eclectic output as a musician over the next decade, adapting some of his work for the film the Orientation of Sweet Willie Rollbar (1974), headlining New York's African American cultural performances, and even playing on the rhythm and blues group Kool and the Gang track “Hustler's Convention” (1973). Hemphill also recorded two albums as his alter-ego persona, Roi Boye, for the 1977 releases Blue Boye and Roi Boye and the Gotham Minstrels. In 1977 he reunited with his old BAG partners Bluiett and Lake. Together with David Murray, they formed the World Saxophone Quartet (WSQ), with which Hemphill remained until 1990. As WSQ's primary composer, Hemphill's work enjoyed its greatest national and global exposure. In the 1980s Hemphill received critical acclaim for his WSQ work and his composition “Steppin',” was added to the prestigious Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz.
A car accident in 1982 somewhat impaired Hemphill's mobility, but he remained both a prolific composer and a dynamic player. In 1990 he left the WSQ and formed the Julius Hemphill Sextet. He composed commissioned multimedia collaborations, including Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera, which premiered in Washington, D.C., in 1989. Through spoken words, dance pieces, photo montages, and music, the piece told the four-decade story of the Bohemian Caverns Jazz Club. Hemphill also worked on the Last Supper at Uncle Tom's Cabin: The Promised Land, which toured the United States and Europe in 1990 and 1991. Other commissioned works led Hemphill to work with groups as diverse as the Arditti String Quartet on “One Atmosphere (For Ursula)” in 1992, the Richmond Symphony in “Plan B” in 1993, and “A Bitter Glory” with the Walker Art Center and the American Music Theater Festival in 1994.
In 1991 Hemphill returned to recording, releasing Fat Man and the Hard Blues with his sextet on the Italian label Black Saint Records. He also released a live album of his performance with the cellist Abdul Wadud in 1992 called Oakland Duets. The final album released by his sextet during Hemphill's life, Five Chord Stud, was released on Black Saint Records in 1993. In March 1993 Hemphill underwent open heart surgery and treatment for his severe diabetes (his right leg was finally amputated as a result). He made one of his final appearances in a public performance from his wheelchair at the New York Jazz Festival in 1994. Recovering from a prolonged bout with cancer and increasing problems with diabetes, Hemphill died at the age of fifty-seven.
Copyright © 2005 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
http://bombmagazine.org/article/1744/julius-hemphill
Photograph courtesy of the Integrated Arts People.
Saxophonist and composer Julius Hemphill understands that the
importance of music is its ability to celebrate emotion. Raised on the
blues in his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, Hemphill performed with
blues, rhythm and blues, and jazz bands until 1966, when, at the age of
28, he moved to St. Louis. There, he was instrumental in founding the
Black Artists Group, a collective of musicians, artists, performing
artists, and writers, and began composing and recording “creative music”
(Dogon A.D.). Hemphill moved to New York City in 1973; this period is marked by several remarkable albums, including Coon Bid’ness and Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels.
In 1976, Hemphill, Oliver Lake, David Murray, and Hamiet Bluiett formed
the World Saxophone Quartet—a four-horn band, no rhythm section—which
revolutionized the concept of the saxophone section on numerous albums
and performances worldwide. Hemphill left the WSQ in 1989 and began
collaborating with dancer Bill T. Jones on The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land, which met with much acclaim in the United States and Europe. Hemphill premiered his own extended multidisciplinary piece, Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera, the following year; the Julius Hemphill Sextet—yes, six saxophones, no rhythm section—released the album Fat Man and the Hard Blues (Black Saint) in 1991; and Hemphill was commissioned by saxophonist Tim Berne to write seven pieces for Berne’s Diminutive Mysteries (mostly Hemphill) (JMT/PolyGram) in 1992. In the Spring, the Julius Hemphill Sextet will release a new album, Spiritual Chairs (For Bill T. Jones) (Black Saint).
That’s the facts. But Julius Hemphill’s music is about digging under
the facts, pulling out the stops, revealing the insides, telling the
truth. His groove-oriented pieces (Steppin’, The Hard Blues, Otis Groove)
seem to be a function of his having internalized the essence of the
blues, so that the feeling, the ache of that music, is imbedded in the
soul of these songs. Contrarily, his more compositional side is less
about rhythm and more about sound, timbre, and tone. But always, his
compositions value improvisation; even his most thoroughly notated works
call for the musicians to collectively improvise within the parameters
of that piece and there again lies the spirit of the blues in Julius
Hemphill’s music, which is perhaps the most revealing truth of all.
Suzanne McElfresh
I want to go somewhat chronologically through your career. You were
born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, and studied music early on. What
made you want to play music? And who were some of your earliest musical
influences?
Julius Hemphill
Basically, I listened to saxophones—alto saxophones in particular. One
of the first persons I listened to was Louis Jordan. Then Tab Smith and
Earl Bostic, and later on, Sonny Stitt, Charlie Parker, then Lee Konitz
and Paul Desmond, Johnny Hodges. That’s about the extent of my nurturing
experience. I don’t know what made me want to start playing music. But I
was listening to music all the time, inadvertently sometimes, because I
lived surrounded by jukeboxes in this little elbow of Fort Worth called
the Hot End. In the summer, it would be really warm, so people would
have all their windows open, and I would hear all these jukeboxes,
sometimes beyond wanting to hear them. It was where people came to let
off steam. That’s why they had all the jukeboxes. They came to drink and
gamble and play the jukeboxes, hang out. Especially on the weekends,
although some people were there every day. But then my mother wanted me
to have music lessons, so she took me to the high school band director.
And I wanted to blow a trumpet, for some reason, although I listened to
saxophones. So he handed me a trumpet and said, see if you can play it.
And of course, my neck swelled up and I got red in the face. (laughter)
So he gave me a clarinet and said, blow that. So I went on the
clarinet. It wasn’t until later that I found out I could play the
saxophone as a result of playing the clarinet. That was quite an
exciting day. I was in junior high when I figured that out. Then I got a
saxophone and I started fooling around with it. I was listening to some
Charlie Parker records, trying to copy them to a certain extent. I was
really trying really hard to do that. I gave it some attention. Then the
music sort of faded from my active life. My main thrust was sports once
I got to high school.
SM Did you play football?
JH
Texas football. I played football in the fall and music in the spring. I
didn’t want to be in the marching bands; I never have liked marching
bands. Then when I was in my junior year, I sent away and got some Gerry
Mulligan arrangements and I started a quartet playing those. I was
borrowing the school’s baritone to play. Then I graduated and went out
for football at the University of California. Then I got a new horn and
turned in my football uniform, stopped football entirely.
SM What kind of horn?
JH It was a new alto.
SM When did you study clarinet with John Carter?
JH
When I was in the sixth grade. He’s from Fort Worth. I was his first
teaching assignment out of college. Mostly, I just gave him a hard time.
Because band was where you goofed off, so I and a couple of friends—he
was not happy to see us coming. (laughter) But then we matured a
little. When I was in high school—this was four years after I left—he
was playing alto saxophone for the proms. At one of them, I asked him
why he was teaching school, and he said, “Because I like to eat.” So he
maintained that teacher-performer thing all the way to the end of his
life. He was getting more and more active as a performer, getting more
recognition, because he was a super clarinetist. Unfortunately, he came
to the end of his road.
SM
There are so many great saxophone players who came out of Texas. Is
that just a coincidence or do you think it has anything to do with the
musical environment?
JH
Well, I really can’t pinpoint a cause-and-effect kind of principle or
something. In Texas, you don’t think about that. It’s only outside of
Texas that you hear about it. I guess there are individuals around in
different parts of the state who cause people to follow them or to be
impressed or influenced by them. But I don’t know what to attribute all
this Texas saxophone mythology to. I wasn’t trying to sound like nobody
in Texas, or really like anybody else. So I don’t know if I’m included
in that.
SM Oh, you
definitely are. The Texas style seems to have a strong element of the
blues in the sound. And your sound—the tone, the phrasing—has a strong
blues and gospel element; even if you’re not playing the “Hard Blues” or
“Steppin’,” even when it’s not a composition of yours that’s
blues-oriented.
JH That’s
interesting. You know, when I started out, when I finished high school
and I went to California, one thing I was avoiding was the blues. The
blues in the sense of John Lee Hooker or Jimmy Reed and all those on the
jukeboxes, Son House and T-Bone Walker. They were playing Chicago-type,
urban blues, and Delta blues. But I never tried to play any of that.
SM You didn’t care for it?
JH I thought it was redundant.
SM It would have been redundant for you to play it?
JH
I thought the music itself was redundant. I was more interested in
Lenny Tristano—kind of an intellectual thing, because it didn’t have all
this baggage, is what I thought. But the problem was I was being
slightly ignorant; I had my priorities all wrong.
SM You think you did?
JH
I know I did. Because Lenny Tristano, oh, that’s okay, that’s all
right, it’s an interesting side issue, but now I don’t think it holds up
to the depth of what I get from listening to Charlie Parker. One
Charlie Parker solo would wipe out a whole Lenny Tristano record.
SM So it was a reaction on your part, saying, I’ve heard the blues, so I want to pursue something else?
JH
Something like that. The thing was that us urbanites thought all these
blues—we just lumped them all together and said, Well, this is kind of
country. See, where I lived, there were a lot of country people, they’d
come to Fort Worth and come out on that side of town. And they would be
the ones playing these blues. And I was more sophisticated than that.
But you gotta start someplace.
SM But the blues is an element in some of your compositions and in some of your playing.
JH
Well, if it’s a blues song, it’s a blues or whatever. But when I went
to California, a guy said to me, “Play the blues”, and I said, “What are
you talking about?” I had no idea what to play. Soon as I got away from
Gerry Mulligan, I didn’t know what to play. So I started working on
that. The blues seemed contrived, because you can just add these certain
elements to a solo—but that’s what it is. It may well be contrived, but
that’s the art of it. I had some experience in Texas playing with blues
bands after starting from ground zero. That was the only work I could
get, or the most abundant work I could get. I played in the band that
was backing Joe Turner.
SM Big Joe Turner?
JH Big Joe Turner.
SM I like him.
JH
I do, too. I played in the house band, and he was a guest. I also
played in a band called Keil’s Boogie-Chillun’ Blues Boys Band.
SM No wonder you have such good titles for your own songs.
JH We played out in West Texas, in the juke joints. We were going to one gig, and Keil hit a rabbit (laughter)—he’s going about 80, carload full of people—and he swerves, he tries to hit it, he’s aiming for the rabbit. And he got out and said, “Yeah, you see me get that rabbit?” (laughter)
Put it in the trunk and had it fixed at the place where we were going.
They had barbecue, and they were bootlegging, out in the woods
somewhere. That’s not hard to come by in Texas. Good barbecue almost
every place you go. So I got my blues experience.
SM His name was Keil?
JH Richard Keil.
SM Was he a singer?
JH He didn’t do anything. He drove the car. And he took care of arrangements, lodging and stuff.
SM You played with Ike Turner, too?
JH Yeah. Ike and Tina.
SM Was this before or after you moved to St. Louis?
JH This was when I was in St. Louis. I played with them for about two weeks.
SM What was that like?
JH
Part of it was like being in Dayton, Ohio, out on the highway motel. It
was about a hundred degrees outside. There was absolutely nothing to
do. I mean, we’re not in town. We’re outside of town, across from the
shopping mall. That was the only thing—Ike Turner didn’t want us to
rehearse.
SM Oh, really? Just get up on stage and play?
JH
Well, he would rehearse his stuff. But we had times when the band also
played some music. And he didn’t want us to develop better band music.
So there was a kind of pecking order that he wanted to establish. We
were riding around the Midwest in this little yellow school bus. And Ike
and the Ikettes were riding in this Cadillac in front of us. And Tina
never said a word. She never said a word. You would think she couldn’t
talk. Ike Turner controlled everything. He said, “There’s a lot of
things people can do better than me, but I damn bet you I can manage a
dollar. Squeeze it till the eagle grins.” He’s largely responsible for
her having a career. But it was music that was boring to do. It was
entertaining looking at Tina and the Ikettes bumpin’ and jumpin.’
Because they could hit it. But musically it was boring, the whole thing
was boring.
SM It was shortly after that you founded Black Artists Group, with some other musicians. Was that right around ’67?
JH
That happened in ’67. The members of the Black Artists Group had
applied for positions with an inner-city arts project. I applied as a
musical representative, but I got a job as an administrator. We started
from scratch: securing a building, and the landlord had the building
fixed up. It was about 10,000 square feet on two floors. And a local
company donated some flooring, and we made other improvements. So we
started from scratch, and as far as the group was concerned, it pretty
much stayed that way. We did some community work and we did some great
performances, actually, out in the community. We did a piece called,
“Poem for a Revolutionary Night,” in the middle of a housing project.
Nobody had ever been down there outdoors at night.
SM And it was what kind of music? Original compositions by members of BAG?
JH Yeah. Oliver Lake was playing his music. And there were actors, and somebody developed a puppet show.
SM So it was multidisciplinary?
JH Exactly.
SM
That’s what is interesting about you as a musician, that you’re not
only interested in performing music on a stage. You did the piece with
Bill T. Jones, The Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land. You wrote a saxophone opera, Long Tongues.
That’s not something every musician pursues. What sparked your interest
in wanting to work on collaborations, in a theater or a dance setting?
JH
Prior to my living in St. Louis, I was playing, you know, regular
club-type music, Horace Silver, Miles Davis, stuff like that. But I
wasn’t really taken by that. I’ve been a kind of maverick all along. So
in the Black Artists Group, I got a chance to interact with all these
people and then it made a lot more sense to me. I found it much more
compelling. I wasn’t so taken with the idea of just blowing. Because
first of all, I wasn’t so interested in learning those songs.
SM You wanted to write your own.
JH
I didn’t know that’s what was going on. But that seems to have been
what was going on. Basically, since that time, that’s what I’ve been
doing, to the exclusion of other people’s songs.
SM
How is it that you write compositions, from a philosophical standpoint.
Some of your songs have a hard-blues, rhythmic pulse. And others are
more ethereal and airy, with long tones. You have a varied compositional
style that spans the extremes.
JH
Well, basically, I do like Marvin Gaye said, “If I’m horny, I write
some horny music. If I’m getting divorced, I write some getting-divorced
music.” (laughter) I figure out what kind of feeling I would
like, and figure out what kind of tune goes with that feeling, whether
it’s a ballad, a medium tempo, or a rhythmic, punchy kind of thing. The
thing about having six saxophones is it’s easier to cover more ground
musically than with four. There are instruments available to play the
rhythmic base under the other parts, which makes it a little easier than
if you just had a quartet trying to cover all that ground.
SM Saxophonist/composer Tim Berne commissioned you to write seven pieces for his recent album, Diminutive Mysteries (mostly Hemphill). In the notes to the album, you say you gave him the sketches and that he and the band worked out the compositions.
JH
Right. I gave them some ideas that were fairly complete. But to me,
improvisation is very important, and if you’ve got a group of
improvisers, why not use them. I think we arrived at a kind of group
consciousness that was really nice.
SM Yeah, the album is very beautiful.
JH
Yeah, even more than I anticipated. I was quite surprised to hear how
they had taken it and really done something with it. I was more than
pleased with that.
SM So there is a good deal of improvisation in each of those pieces?
JH
Yes. And I like it when it’s somewhat difficult to say where’s the
improvisation and where’s the written stuff or vice versa. And there’s a
fair amount of that on the album.
SM Your compositions tend to have that quality.
JH Yeah, I like that. Improvisation is the reason I’m a musician.
SM Can you elaborate on that?
JH
What I mean is, I like to make things. And with improvisation, you
construct all these images and stuff, but, actually, there’s nothing
there. There’s an illusion of having built something. The reason I got
into music was the art of improvising. As I listened to all these famous
people, that’s what attracted me, really not arranging or any of that.
Blowing is what attracted me. These compositional things were kind of an
afterthought, because I never really studied for it.
SM Except for basic harmony.
JH Yes. So I kind of tinkered with it. Came up with some interesting lines sometimes.
SM
Throughout your tenure with the World Saxophone Quartet, you were the
primary composer. So maybe tinkering is too light a word. Or maybe
that’s how you see it.
JH
Yeah, well, I’m into harmony. I like to fool around with it. If left to
my own devices, I can come up with stuff. People tell me that I have a
style; I’m pleased to know that.
SM You have a very definitive style. On the cover of your album, Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels,
which you recorded for Sackville, you’re wearing a silver lame tuxedo.
In the liner notes, you discuss the tradition of costuming in American
show business, and how this related to black American performers.
JH
Well, you often hear people nowadays talking about the tradition,
tradition, tradition. But they have tunnel vision on this tradition.
Because tradition in African-American music is as wide as all outdoors.
At one time, most of the Broadway stuff was black stuff, mostly. The
black songwriters wrote for all of these kinds of productions. The
tradition is vast—you look back on the various acts and stuff, the
comedians, many of them had baggy costumes, oversized shoes. Then it
seemed like that part of the tradition died out and people got
interested in a different kind of respectability.
SM
What originally prompted you to write for four saxophones without a
rhythm section? Because that was something that hadn’t really been done
in American music.
JH Well, like what prompts a lot of things, is we got a gig. (laughter)
The four of us [Hemphill, Oliver Lake, David Murray, Hamiet Bluiett]
were down in New Orleans and we needed some music to play. So we worked
up a few tunes. We were guests at the Southern University branch at New
Orleans.
SM This was 1976?
JH I think about ’76. We performed with a rhythm section, and we also performed without a rhythm section.
SM And that was your idea?
JH
I don’t know whose idea that was. But we tried it at the concert and it
worked. We got a great response from playing as a quartet without a
rhythm section. So we said, well, we gotta keep this, don’t we?
SM
Because now there’s a number of saxophone quartets, four or five
others. It has started this whole genre. And now you’re composing for a
band of six saxophones.
JH
Well, there’s no reason to think that there’s a formula for what makes
up a band. Nobody said you had to have this or that. Some people say
that, but as far as I’m concerned, their thinking is just a little
narrow. So as you say, there has been a great rise in the number of
quartets that didn’t exist before—10 or 15 years ago. But a gig got us
started.
SM You recorded Dogon A.D.
on your own label in ’72 (it was rereleased in ’77). The title refers
to the African tribe in Mali called the Dogon. Why did you chose that
subject for your album?
JH
Well, the A.D. stands for adaptive dance, and I had in mind a dance all
along. I read an article about how the Dogon had decided to reveal some
of their sacred dance ritual, to attract the tourist trade. I had seen
some of the dancing on video, and I had read a little about the Dogon
and their cosmic view, and it was quite extraordinary. They have been
proclaiming the existence of a companion star to Sirius, which could not
be seen. And finally, Western scientists have telescopes that can see
it. So how did these people living in these mud huts know this about the
solar system? Like elliptical orbits, and all of these uncanny things.
The Dogon seemed to be singular in their beliefs; they claim that they
were visited by star people, and they have drawings of some of these
events that they had kept hidden. There were a lot of fairly
mind-boggling stories. And what they understand about the planets,
without a telescope, mind you, researchers, especially French and
British researchers, have been trying to poke at for 40, 50 years. The
real clincher was the discovery of the star Sirius B, as it is called,
and it’s there, like they said it was. The orbit for this invisible star
to come around Sirius takes 55 years. And every 55 years the Dogon have
a festival. So, I find them extraordinary and unique among Africans.
SM And what about Coon Bid’ness? I like that title, and it’s a great album.
JH
That was around the bicentennial. This was ‘75, and the title is a
reference to minstrel shows. That’s a reference to music and an era in
which blacks had flowered a little bit. They used to call them coon
shows, and stuff. And so I was just getting in some bicentennial licks.
SM Some of your own commentary on the bicentennial was slightly cynical, but for good reason.
JH Well, you know, part of the mix. Part of the mix.
SM Tim Berne said about you, “Julius has always been ahead of his time.” How would you respond to that?
JH Well, I don’t know about that. When is my time? (laughter)
Except for being hardheaded, I wouldn’t have a time. Against
everybody’s advice, I became a musician. They said, you can’t make a
living doing that. And it’s been touch and go a lot of the time. But
here we are.
SM I know Ornette Coleman’s older than you. Had you heard him play around Fort Worth?
JH
Oh yeah. I knew him as a little kid. And I heard him occasionally play
saxophone when I was a teenager. This was in the ‘50s. He was playing in
a blues band, most of the time. I didn’t get to hear him all that many
times, but I knew him for years. And he was always a character. When he
was 20, 21, I was 12 or 13. He had real long hair. He had curls. He was
the only person in Texas I knew that had hair like that. He kind of
stuck out.
SM There seems to be a strong spiritual element in your music. Is that something you’re aware of?
JH
I think my interest in music is a little more complicated… I like to
fool around with music, and I like to put on a good performance, a good
show, on my own terms. I mean, that’s why you’re sitting here talking to
me. So I can’t really explain. Someone was telling me, “Why don’t you
do so and so.” And I can’t really tell them why I’m not particularly
interested in doing it. I guess it’s kind of selfish on my part, because
I want it to be like I want it to be. And it seems like there ought to
be room enough for something else, but the record companies have kind of
frozen out talented people. They’re concentrating on this new
generation of bebopsters. And I think they’ve made some decisions, which
makes them actually look stupid.
SM They do seem to be limiting what jazz is.
JH Yeah. I saw a very interesting article in The Village Voice
called “Shackling Surprise” that was speaking about Wynton Marsalis and
Stanley Crouch being in charge of the Lincoln Center Jazz Program. They
have been, as far as I’m concerned, the death of creative music late in
the 20th century.
SM That’s a very strong statement, but I cannot say that I disagree with you.
JH Well, I intend it to be a strong statement. They’ve turned it into the Stanley and Wynton Show.
SM
And Stanley used to be a big proponent of creative music, including the
World Saxophone Quartet. And now he’s become very conservative.
JH Well, he’s a whatever, available for hire, that’s what he is.
SM Like a mercenary.
JH
Like an Uncle Tom. They’re in the league with the white boys who run
the record business. They’re just doing their job for them. I hate to be
a victim, but I consider myself somewhat of a victim of this rule these
two Uncle Tom idiots have put out. You know what I mean? And I promised
myself the next voice I had in the media I was going to say that. So,
there, I said it. Music is much bigger than bebop changes. I don’t feel
like being trapped in those halls of harmony. Cause I want to go across
the grain sometimes. Anyway, I’m telling you, the music business has
gotten to be the monkey business.
SM Your next album will have new compositions. What can you tell us about those pieces?
JH I have some very fragmentary compositional notions. One piece, Five Chord Stud,
consists of five chords played by a soloist and backup musicians, and
those can change and you can play any notes out of the chords, however
you want to. Just give deference to the soloist and see how that works
out.
SM That sounds like an interesting piece.
JH
It might be. You need the merest of pretexts for this group kind of
interaction. And the more you do it the better at it you get. And I
think I have some players that respond well to those kinds of notions.
SM On the Sextet album, Fat Man and the Hard Blues, a couple of pieces, such as Tendrils; and Opening,
do not seem to focus primarily on rhythm. They’re more about tones, and
chords that aren’t creating traditional harmony. And in some of your
other pieces, like Hard Blues or Steppin' or Fat Man
the rhythm is more prevalent. You can nod your head to it, though there
are interesting things going on harmonically, too. That’s what’s
interesting about your compositional style.
JH
Yeah, well, I’m a bit of an advocate of the Duke Ellington School, in
that Duke Ellington would do anything in a composition, a little bit of
this, a little bit of that. Once I got that, that’s practically all I
needed to get. Otherwise I let my imagination do the roaming, you know.
And I think it’s interesting. Tendrils is just about four or five chords, with improvisation between them. Opening
is supposed to be church bells, the sound of a lot of bells going off.
That was a piece that came out of seeing one of Bill T. Jones’s pieces
that reminded me of a ceremony, the piece, The Promised Land.
I was striving for a certain majesty. A ringing bell creates a series
of overtones that exist within it. So I was trying to activate enough
pitches in the saxophone to create that sound.
SM And then what about the Hard Blues? What was your idea behind that composition?
JH It’s a fairly funky blues with some quirks. For example, it’s in 11-bar blues instead of a 12-bar. But nobody notices it.
SM Because it sounds so natural.
JH Yeah, right. So much for 12-bar blues.
—Suzanne McElfresh is a New York City-based music journalist.
Julius Hemphill
(Copyright © 2006
(Copyright © 2006
Texas-born alto saxophonist Julius Hemphill (1938) moved to St Louis in 1968 where he became a leader of the Black Artists' Group (BAG). He staged multimedia events such as Kawaida (1972), The Orientation Of Sweet Willie Rollbar (1973) and Obituary (1974). His status as one of the leading composers of his time was established by pieces in which bluesy melodies became the scaffolding of complex geometric architectures. It started with the three lengthy pieces of Dogon AD (February 1972), featuring Baikida Carroll on trumpet, Abdul Wadud on cello and Philip Wilson on drums: the 14-minute Dogon A.D., the 15-minute flute solo The Painter, the eight-minute Rites. The Hard Blues, from the same session, appeared on Coon Bid'ness (january 1975), that included new compositions for a sextet with baritonist Hamiet Bluiett, Wadud, altoist Arthur Blythe, drummer Barry Altschul and conga player Daniel Zebulon.
After relocating to New York in 1973 and performing in Anthony Braxton's saxophone-only ensembles, in 1976 Hemphill formed the World Saxophone Quartet with fellow saxophonists Oliver Lake (alto), David Murray (tenor) and Hamiet Bluiett (baritone). The original intention, as displayed on the freely improvised Point Of No Return (june 1977) and in particular with the 24-minute Scared Sheetless, was to pursue a bold program of dissonance. Steppin' With (december 1978) contained Hemphill's Steppin' and R&B as well as Murray's P.O. in Cairo.
The double LP Blue Boye (January 1977), entirely performed by Hemphill himself on alto, soprano, flute and percussion, was perhaps Hemphill's most eloquent aesthetic statement: eight elegant, intricate mid-size excursions into the secrets of sound from the perspective of an art that began with the blues. Pieces such as the 11-minute Countryside, the 13-minute Hotend, the 10-minute OK Rubberband and the 12-minute C.M.E felt much more "dense" than solos. And somehow Hemphill's jarred, fractured phrasing crafted mellow, romantic atmospheres, like a shy, nervous lover. Roi Boye and the Gotham Minstrels (march 1977) refined the concept in a series of performances for overdubbed instruments (alto, soprano and flute), while Raw Materials and Residuals (November 1977) added a lyrical element thanks to Wadud's cello and Don Moye's percussions (particularly in Mirrors, Plateau and G Song). The intellectual phase was closed by Flat Out Jump Suite (june 1980), a four-movement suite Ear, Mind, Heart and Body) for a chamber-jazz quartet with Wadud, trumpeter Olu Dara and percussionist Warren Smith.
These massive works were complemented by lighter duets: Live In New York (may 1976) with Abdul Wadud and Buster Bee (March 1978) with Oliver Lake. In the meantime, Hemphill also composed the four-movement suite for seven woodwinds Water Music (1976) and the soundtrack to a multimedia installation, Chile New York (may 1980).
During the 1980s the World Saxophone Quartet absorbed most of Hemphill's energies. Hemphill continued to be the main composer of the quartet's music through W.S.Q. (march 1980) and Revue (october 1980), but the quartet soon began to play more accessible music (and often covers).
Live At Kassiopeia (january 1987) documents a live performance by Julius Hemphill and bassist Peter Kowald three Hemphill solos, a 32-minute solo by Kowald and duets.
After leaving the World Saxophone Quartet in 1989, Hemphill, who had already displayed his restlessness with an album for Big Band (february 1988), invested more into highbrow compositions such as the multimedia opera Long Tongues (1989), that also debuted his saxophone sextet, the ballet The Last Supper At Uncle Tom's Cabin/The Promised Land (1990), Plan B (1993) for jazz sextet and symphony orchestra, the theatrical piece A Bitter Glory (1994).
His saxophone Sextet (with Marty Ehrlich, Carl Grubbs, Hames Carter, Andrew White and Sam Furnace) recorded a surprisingly fragmented album, Fat Man and the Hard Blues (july 1991). His health rapidly deteriorating, Hemphill organized the Sextett (altoists Tim Berne, Marty Ehrlich and Sam Furnace, tenors James Carter and Andrew White and baritonist Fred Ho) of Five Chord Stud (november 1993) to play his new compositions, including Five Chord Stud.
His last collaborations were Live From The New Music Cafe (september 1991) with Wadud and percussionist Joe Bonadio, and Oakland Duets (november 1992) with Wadud.
Julius Hemphill died in 1995.
More Hemphill compositions were released posthumously on At Dr King's Table (april 1997) and Tim Berne's Diminutive Mysteries (september 1992). One Atmosphere (2003) added the quintet for piano and strings One Atmosphere (1992), the four-movement suite for seven woodwinds Water Music (1976) and the trio Savannah Suite.
http://www.wonderingsound.com/spotlight/julius-hemphill-economical-orchestration-and-the-hard-blues/
Julius Hemphill: Economical Orchestration and the Hard Blues
Hemphill’s “Steppin’,” the title track of WSQ’s breakout second album recorded in 1978, set out their multi-vectored polyrhythmic approach. In the first two minutes, bass clarinet and soprano saxophone play a funky syncopated bass line under flowing soprano and flute, all four horns play in harmony, and then flute and two saxes collectively improvise over the bass clarinet figure, freely interweaving over a solid foundation. Recombination, contrasting colors, driving, sometimes overlapping riffs under solos, R&B overtones: That was a WSQ template. The four voices stay busy all the time.
Bandmates Oliver Lake (like Hemphill playing alto and soprano), David Murray (tenor and bass clarinet) and Hamiet Bluiett (mostly on baritone) brought tunes too, but Hemphill brought many more; save for Bluiett’s opening/closing theme “Hattie Wall” on 1981′s Live in Zurich all the tunes are Julius’s, and point up his range. On “Touchic” you can hear the string-quartet parallels in the diverging/converging lines, funk in the rhythm and traces of Stevie Wonder soul in the melodic writing. There’s a revved-up revival of “Steppin’,” and lush reed voicings on “My First Winter.” “Bordertown,” led by Julius’s soprano, is a lilting earworm of a tune, also recorded by his one-shot, fitfully successful 1988 Big Band.
He had already made his mark in modern jazz before he co-founded the WSQ. Born in Fort Worth, where he studied with future Clarinet Summit member John Carter, Hemphill played in various blues, funk and R&B bands before he really got rolling in St. Louis in the early ’70s. Like Lake and Bluiett he was a member of the city’s Black Artists Group (BAG), inspired by the Chicago AACM collective‘s ways of rethinking standard instrumentation – which sometimes involved getting rid of the rhythm section, as WSQ would do.
His elusive debut Dogon A.D. (finally being reissued in 2011) and “The Hard Blues” from the follow-up Coon Bid’ness (reissued as Reflections) were recorded in St. Louis in 1972. They’re stunners, not least for Julius’s own dry, acerbic, bluesy alto saxophone (and flute), and Abdul Wadud’s extraordinary work on cello, reconceived as a sort of bowed/plucked country blues guitar; the match-up between his grinding, resonant tone and Hemphill’s horns is electrifying. For proof, listen to Reflections‘ “Skin 1″ and “2,” with a cello-and-congas beat that seems to blow right off the West African savannah, under Hemphill’s and Arthur Blythe’s searing altos and Bluiett’s guttural bari, or the slow stomping “Hard Blues” with Bluiett, trumpeter Baikida Carroll, ex-Art Ensemble of Chicago/Paul Butterfield Blues Band drummer Philip Wilson, and Wadud at his spiky bluesy best.
Hemphill’s overdubbed 1977 solo albums Blue Boyé and Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels were born of economic necessity. Improvising over prepared tapes of his own alto, soprano and flute was an affordable way to play live with accompaniment. In those layered parts you can hear the World Saxophone Quartet sound emerging; the quartet started up around the same time. (Hemphill and Oliver Lake also recorded a sidebar duo album, Buster Bee.)
The Hemphill/Wadud partnership continued through a live duo album from ’76, the following year’s salty Raw Materials and Residuals (for trio, adding Art Ensemble drummer Don Moye) and 1980′s Flat Out Jump Suite (with cornetist Olu Dara and drummer Warren Smith, where the funky “Body” is the standout).
Hemphill worked with WSQ through the ’80s, on fine records like Revue and Dances and Ballads, but his health began to deteriorate, owing to diabetes. Touring became more difficult, and in 1989 his bandmates unceremoniously ousted him. While they’ve made some good records since with a long succession of fourth members, the original lineup remains the best.
In conversation in 1994, Hemphill said they may have done him a favor, kicking him out. By then he had a saxophone sextet, formed to play his multi-media “saxophone opera” Long Tongues. The expanded group recorded Fat Man and the Hard Blues in 1991. Compared to WSQ, the close-interval harmonies are even more lush, the blue moans more blue (“Anchorman,” for tenor Andrew White), the fetching melody statements that much more stately, and the free swarming more full bodied. (The other players: Marty Ehrlich, Carl Grubbs, James Carter and Sam Furnace.) In 1995, Hemphill passed away.
He may not get all the credit he deserves, but he hasn’t been forgotten. Ehrlich reconvened the sextet to play some of his undocumented music, in concert and for the album At Dr. King’s Table. Former protégé Tim Berne and onetime student David Sanborn made an album of Julius’s tunes, Diminutive Mysteries.
http://jazztimes.com/articles/15639-the-hard-blues-julius-hemphill-sextet
JazzTimes
JazzTimes
May 2005
The Hard Blues
One thought kept going through my mind as I listened to The
Hard Blues: Not much good came out of Julius Hemphill leaving the World
Saxophone Quartet. Sure, the WSQ went on to record a bunch more albums
with his replacements, and Hemphill himself formed a nice sax sextet to
play his own compositions. But the WSQ never recorded another truly
great album after Hemphill left, and Hemphill's sextet-as good as it
was-was never quite on a level with the WSQ.
Now Hemphill is gone, but his sextet continues under the leadership
of altoist/sopranoist Marty Ehrlich. On The Hard Blues he is joined by
Andy Laster (alto), the late Sam Furnace (alto/soprano), Aaron Stewart
(tenor), Andrew White (tenor) and Alex Harding (bari). But is the band's
continued existence a good thing? Well, it's not a bad thing, but it's
definitely not the same thing. Just as the Hemphill-led sextet paled
somewhat in comparison to the WSQ, so does this Ehrlich-led group suffer
when held up to its immediate predecessor.
The Hard Blues proves just how important Hemphill's physical presence was to the realization of his music. Compositions like the avant-swinger "Band Theme" and the soul-based title track are outright catchy and supremely inventive. Hempill's tunes are never a few riffs stuffed into an AABA form; they are full-fledged compositions that explore a wider range of formal ideas than is usual among small-group composers. The band plays the heck out of them. The ensembles are taut, sassy and swinging, and the solo work is excellent (White in particular kills on "Band Theme"). But I'd be lying if I didn't say it all sounds just a little mannered. Missing is the spark of Hemphill's outsized personality.
The Hard Blues proves just how important Hemphill's physical presence was to the realization of his music. Compositions like the avant-swinger "Band Theme" and the soul-based title track are outright catchy and supremely inventive. Hempill's tunes are never a few riffs stuffed into an AABA form; they are full-fledged compositions that explore a wider range of formal ideas than is usual among small-group composers. The band plays the heck out of them. The ensembles are taut, sassy and swinging, and the solo work is excellent (White in particular kills on "Band Theme"). But I'd be lying if I didn't say it all sounds just a little mannered. Missing is the spark of Hemphill's outsized personality.
http://bells.free-jazz.net/bells-part-one/julius-hemphill-coon-bidness/
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www.nathanielturner.com
julius hemphill | coon bid’ness
‘COON BID’NESS (Arista AL 1012)
Julius Hemphill / alto saxophone, Black Arthur Blythe / alto saxophone, Hamiet Bluiett / baritone saxophone, Abdul Wadud / cello, Barry Altschul / drums, Daniel Ben Zebulan / congas.
On Side Two: Julius Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett, Abdul Wadud; and Baikida E.J. Carroll / trumpet; Phillip Wilson / drums.
Recorded: Side One: January 29, 1975; Side Two: February 1972.
Julius Hemphill is a
composer and an improviser: a composer in the tradition of Ellington,
Mingus, and Ra, and an improviser with deep roots in the blues.
Side one of ‘Coon Bid’Ness (four tracks) works as a single composition. The opening piece, “Reflections,”
begins with a slow lament, the three horns and cello creating dark,
rich harmonies and utilizing a subtle vibrato to underline the music’s
pathos. “Lyric” continues in this vein; then the space begins
to open up. Hemphill, it seems, likes to work with several layers of
sound, to slowly take them apart – to the point of near dissolution –
then to put them back together again (though not necessarily the same as
they were before). This is what happens during “Lyric” and also during “Skin 1.” The latter piece especially works its way into some very free space. Then “Skin 2” offers alternate choices as to the side’s resolution; yet there is no real resolution, only lingering afterthoughts.
“Hard Blues” (side two) is an unreleased track from the sessions that produced Dogon A.D.,
originally released on Julius Hemphill’s label, Mbari, and now
re-released by Arista. It’s a funky but somewhat rambling piece, with
good solos by Hemphill and Carroll. But, by and large, the music on Dogon is better.
In the U.S., it seems,
the Seventies have been more a period of consolidation rather than of
innovation (as if the advances of the last decade had to be justified
before being built upon). In the process, however, some highly original
and beautiful music has been made, bringing together various (and
sometimes diverse) stylistic elements. Hard to say exactly where this
music will lead, but much of it will easily survive the moment of its
own creation and is well worth appreciating. Julius Hemphill’s album
offers music of this sort, and it’s recommended.
Henry Kuntz, 1975
selected Julius Hemphill recordings:
Julius Hemphill biography:
Julius Arthur Hemphill (February 24,
1938, Fort Worth, Texas – April 2, 1995, New York City) was a jazz
composer and saxophone player. He performed mainly on alto saxophone;
less often soprano and tenor saxophones and flute.
Hemphill was born in Fort Worth,
Texas (also, incidentally, the hometown of Ornette Coleman), and studied
the clarinet before learning saxophone. Gerry Mulligan was an early
influence. Hemphill joined the United States Army in 1964, and served
for several years, and later performed with Ike Turner for a brief
period. In 1968, Hemphill moved to St. Louis, Missouri and co-founded
the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), a multidisciplinary arts collective that
brought him into contact with artists such as saxophonists Oliver Lake
and Hamiet Bluiett, trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, and
writer/director Malinke Robert Elliott.
Hemphill moved to New York City in
the mid-1970s, and was active in the then-thriving free jazz community.
He taught saxophone lessons to a number of notable musicians, including
David Sanborn and Tim Berne. Hemphill was probably best known as the
founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, a group he formed in 1976, after
collaborating with Anthony Braxton in several saxophone-only ensembles.
Hemphill left the World Saxophone Quartet in the early 1990s, and
formed a saxophone quintet.
Hemphill recorded over twenty albums
as a leader, about ten records with the World Saxophone Quartet and
also recorded or performed with Björk, Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton and
others. Late in his life, ill-health (including diabetes and heart
surgery) forced Hemphill to stop playing saxophone, but he continued
writing music until his death. His saxophone sextet, led by Marty
Ehrlich, also released several albums of Hemphill’s music, but without
Hemphill playing. The most recent is titled The Hard Blues, recorded live in Lisbon after Hemphill’s death.
The best source on Hemphill’s life
and music is a multi-hour oral history interview that he conducted for
the Smithsonian Institution in March and April 1994, and which is held
at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History in
Washington, D.C.
ChickenBones: A Journal for Literary & Artistic African-American Themes
Home
www.nathanielturner.com
"Working to raise black consciousness . . . members established a local arts academy for area youths, navigated a relentless calendar of original multimedia productions, and articulated an uncompromising social agenda."
--BAG’s first chairman, Julius Hemphill
JULIUS HEMPHILL
(1938-1995)
Review by Benjamin Looker
From 1968 to 1972, St. Louis was
home to the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), a seminal arts collective that
nurtured African American experimentalists working in theater,
visual arts, dance, poetry, and jazz.
Inspired by a newly assertive
cultural nationalism, over the course of the 1960s scores of black
artistic cooperatives had sprung up around the country, and these
ideological and aesthetic impulses resonated with BAG’s founders. In an
abandoned warehouse in the city’s central core, a generation of
innovative artists created a moment of intense and vibrant cultural
life, surrounded by the physical and economic evisceration that typified
that decade’s “urban crisis.”
Working to raise black
consciousness and explore the far reaches of interdisciplinary
performance, members established a local arts academy for area youths,
navigated a relentless calendar of original multimedia productions,
and articulated an uncompromising social agenda. As debates over
civil rights, nationalism, and the role of the arts in contemporary
struggles all found form in BAG, the organization quickly became one
of the Midwest’s most significant exemplars of the emergent Black
Arts Movement of the 1960s.
This book narrates the group’s
development against the backdrop of St. Louis spaces and institutions,
examines work by its major artists, and follows the collective’s
musicians in their eventual move to Paris and on to New York, where
they played a leading role in Lower Manhattan’s “loft jazz” scene of
the 1970s.—Publisher, Missouri Historical Society Press
"In this brilliant evocation of a great cultural flowering in the late 1960s, Benjamin Looker boldly plants the flag of St. Louis in the middle of the history of jazz and restores that often neglected city to its rightful place in the narrative of African American arts. The rich detail, careful research, and clarity of writing make this book a pleasure to read and set new standards for studies of American culture and urban history."
—--John Szwed, Author of So What: The Life of Miles Davis
"Looker’s meticulously researched monograph on the important Black Artists’ Group is an invaluable contribution to the historical literature on American experimentalism, providing unique and trenchant insights on how African American artists negotiate complex relationships among aesthetics, social and political forces, and community activism. In particular, the book illuminates the process by which musical ideas developed outside of the canonical cultural centers of the United States eventually gained international recognition as among the most audacious, risk-taking new sounds of the late twentieth century."
—--George E. Lewis, Improviser and Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Columbia University
As a young man coming of age in St.
Louis during the Black Power and Black Arts Movements, I am sure
that my creative spirit was ignited through my exposure to BAG. I
was always around these artists at rehearsals, readings, rap
sessions, and performances, just a kid trying to be someplace out of
harm’s way, on a mission of self-discovery. I found myself by being
exposed to the roots of my cultural heritage. The Black Artists’
Group inspired me to do the work that I do today.—Ron Himes, Founder and Producing Director, St. Louis Black Repertory Company
Benjamin Looker is a native
of Ann Arbor, Michigan. He graduated from Washington University in
2000 with majors in urban studies and music, before earning an M.A.
from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Looker was recently a
Fulbright Scholar to Canada, and is currently a graduate student in
the American Studies Program at Yale University.
* * * * *
Julius Arthur Hemphill (January 24, 1938, Fort Worth, Texas – April 2, 1995, New York City) was born in Fort Worth, Texas (also, incidentally, the hometown of Ornette Coleman), and studied the clarinet before learning saxophone. Gerry Mulligan was an early influence. He performed mainly on alto saxophone; less often soprano and tenor saxophones and flute.
Hemphill joined the United States Army in 1964, and served for several years, and later performed with Ike Turner for a brief period. In 1968, Hemphill moved to St. Louis, Missouri and co-founded the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), a multidisciplinary arts collective that brought him into contact with artists such as saxophonists Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett, trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, and writer/director Malinke Robert Elliott.
Hemphill moved to New York City in the mid-1970s, and was active in the then-thriving free jazz community. He taught saxophone lessons to a number of notable musicians, including David Sanborn and Tim Berne. Hemphill was probably best known as the founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, a group he formed in 1976, after collaborating with Anthony Braxton
in several saxophone-only ensembles. Hemphill left the World
Saxophone Quartet in the early 1990s, and formed a saxophone
quintet.
Hemphill recorded over twenty albums as a leader, about ten records with the World Saxophone Quartet and also recorded or performed with Björk, Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton and others. Late in his life, ill-health (including diabetes
and heart surgery) forced Hemphill to stop playing saxophone, but
he continued writing music until his death. His saxophone sextet,
led by Marty Ehrlich, also released several albums of Hemphill’s music, but without Hemphill playing. The most recent is titled The Hard Blues, recorded live in Lisbon after Hemphill’s death.
The best source on Hemphill’s life and music is a multi-hour oral history interview that he conducted for the Smithsonian Institution in March and April 1994, and which is held at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/142017187/julius-hemphills-dogon-a-d-still-a-revelation-40-years-on
Julius Hemphill's "Dogon A.D." — the 15-minute piece, and the
album that's named for it — was one of the startling jazz recordings of
the 1970s, a rethinking of possibilities open to the avant-garde. In the
1960s, free jazz was mostly loud and bashing, until some Chicagoans
began playing a more open, quieter improvised music. That inspired St.
Louis players like Hemphill, who also had ties to heartland
rhythm-and-blues scenes. Hemphill's genius was to combine the
Chicagoans' dramatically spare sound with a heavy backbeat. His new
urban music smacked of old country blues.
Piloting that funky backbeat is drummer Philip Wilson, who'd already mixed free jazz and the blues by leaving the Art Ensemble of Chicago for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Another reason "Dogon A.D." sounds so mesmerizing is Abdul Wadud, whose cello sounds like a Delta blues guitar played with a bow. Wadud sticks mostly to two alternating licks: a grinding two-note riff and the nagging long tones that answer it. Self-contained call and response: That's very bluesy. On trumpet is St. Louis native Baikida Carroll.
Abdul Wadud wasn't the first jazz cellist, but he pointed the way for guitaristic cello improvisers to come, including Tom Cora, Ernst Reijseger, Diedre Murray and Erik Friedlander. "Dogon A.D." is captivating enough to suggest an unseen ritual — it's named for the Dogon people of West Africa, with their elaborate masked ceremonies. Hemphill's tune "Rites" is denser music for the same quartet. A melody with a catchy hook bleeds into a tight collective improvisation that really works because the players really listen to each other.
Other labels have tried to reissue Dogon A.D. before. So give credit to the indie label International Phonograph for putting out its second coveted reissue this year, after Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes. The new edition of Dogon A.D. contains an extra track from the same 1972 session that has been on CD before. "The Hard Blues" adds baritone saxist Hamiet Bluiett to the quartet.
A few years later, saxophonists Julius Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett helped found one of the quintessential New York bands of the late '70s and the '80s, the World Saxophone Quartet. That unit brought Hemphill's new old blues to a much wider audience. Hemphill made other great albums on his own, starting with his second, Coon Bid'ness, also known as Reflections. But none had quite the impact of Dogon A.D. Almost 40 years later, it's still a revelation.
THE MUSIC OF JULIUS HEMPHILL: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. HEMPHILL:
Julius Hemphill - alto sax, flute
Baikida E.J. Carroll - trumpet
Abdul Wadud - cello
Philip Wilson - drums
"The Hard Blues" (composition by Julius Hemphill, 1972):
This track is a previously unreleased track from the recording sessions for "Dogon A.D." album (1972). It's released on the album 'Coon Bid'ness' (1975)
Tracklist:
2.Lyric 7:24
3.Skin 1 10:07
4.Skin 2 2:28
Personnel:
Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Liner Notes, Composed By – Julius Hemphill
Artwork [Cover Art] – Bruno Milano, Giuseppe Pino
Cello – Abdul Wadud
Engineer – Tony May
Percussion [Sun Percussion] – Dougoufana Famoudou Môyè (Don Moye)*
Photography By – Giuseppe Pino
Producer – Giacomo Pellicciotti
Producer [Assistant] – Timothy Marquand
Recorded in November 1977 at Generation Sound Studios, New York City
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Hemphill
Julius Arthur Hemphill (January 24, 1938 – April 2, 1995) was a jazz composer and saxophone player. He performed mainly on alto saxophone, less often on soprano and tenor saxophones and flute.[1]
Hemphill moved to New York City in the mid-1970s, and was active in the then-thriving free jazz community. He gave saxophone lessons to a number of musicians, including David Sanborn and Tim Berne. Hemphill was probably best known as the founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, a group he formed in 1976, after collaborating with Anthony Braxton in several saxophone-only ensembles. Hemphill left the World Saxophone Quartet in the early 1990s, and formed a saxophone quintet.[4]
Hemphill recorded over twenty albums as a leader, about ten records with the World Saxophone Quartet and recorded or performed with Björk, Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton and others. Late in his life, ill-health (including diabetes and heart surgery) forced Hemphill to stop playing saxophone, but he continued writing music until his death[4] in New York City. His saxophone sextet, led by Marty Ehrlich, also released several albums of Hemphill's music, but without Hemphill playing. The most recent is entitled The Hard Blues, recorded live in Lisbon after Hemphill's death.
A source of information on Hemphill's life and music is a multi-hour oral history interview that he conducted for the Smithsonian Institution in March and April 1994, and which is held at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Allmusic
Bradley Shreve, "HEMPHILL, JULIUS," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed July 26, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
Patoski, Joe Nick (2008). Willie Nelson: An Epic Life. p. 50. Retrieved July 25, 2012.
http://www.npr.org/2011/11/04/142017187/julius-hemphills-dogon-a-d-still-a-revelation-40-years-on
Julius Hemphill's 'Dogon A.D.' Still A Revelation 40 Years On
Julius Hemphill's Dogon A.D.
Courtesy of the artist Piloting that funky backbeat is drummer Philip Wilson, who'd already mixed free jazz and the blues by leaving the Art Ensemble of Chicago for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Another reason "Dogon A.D." sounds so mesmerizing is Abdul Wadud, whose cello sounds like a Delta blues guitar played with a bow. Wadud sticks mostly to two alternating licks: a grinding two-note riff and the nagging long tones that answer it. Self-contained call and response: That's very bluesy. On trumpet is St. Louis native Baikida Carroll.
Abdul Wadud wasn't the first jazz cellist, but he pointed the way for guitaristic cello improvisers to come, including Tom Cora, Ernst Reijseger, Diedre Murray and Erik Friedlander. "Dogon A.D." is captivating enough to suggest an unseen ritual — it's named for the Dogon people of West Africa, with their elaborate masked ceremonies. Hemphill's tune "Rites" is denser music for the same quartet. A melody with a catchy hook bleeds into a tight collective improvisation that really works because the players really listen to each other.
Other labels have tried to reissue Dogon A.D. before. So give credit to the indie label International Phonograph for putting out its second coveted reissue this year, after Bill Dixon's Intents and Purposes. The new edition of Dogon A.D. contains an extra track from the same 1972 session that has been on CD before. "The Hard Blues" adds baritone saxist Hamiet Bluiett to the quartet.
A few years later, saxophonists Julius Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett helped found one of the quintessential New York bands of the late '70s and the '80s, the World Saxophone Quartet. That unit brought Hemphill's new old blues to a much wider audience. Hemphill made other great albums on his own, starting with his second, Coon Bid'ness, also known as Reflections. But none had quite the impact of Dogon A.D. Almost 40 years later, it's still a revelation.
THE MUSIC OF JULIUS HEMPHILL: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH MR. HEMPHILL:
Julius Hemphill - alto sax, flute
Baikida E.J. Carroll - trumpet
Abdul Wadud - cello
Philip Wilson - drums
"The Hard Blues" (composition by Julius Hemphill, 1972):
This track is a previously unreleased track from the recording sessions for "Dogon A.D." album (1972). It's released on the album 'Coon Bid'ness' (1975)
Julius Hemphill - "Dogon A.D."-- (Full Album):
Dogon A.D. was originally released in 1972 on Hemphill's own Mbari Records. All compositions and arrangements by Julius Hemphill
Tracklist:
1/Dogon A.D. 00:00
2/Rites 14:29
3/The Painter 22:35
Personnel:
Julius Hemphill - alto sax, flute Baikida E.J. Carroll -
trumpet Abdul Wadud - cello Philip Wilson - drums Oliver
Sain - engineer Dennis Pohl - cover art for Freedom release
Julius Hemphill – 'Coon Bid'ness'- (full album) 1975:
All compositions and arrangements by Julius Hemphill)
Tracklist:
1.Reflections 2:302.Lyric 7:24
3.Skin 1 10:07
4.Skin 2 2:28
Julius Hemphill Quartet - "Body"
From: Flat-Out Jump Suite --1980
(All compositions and arrangements by Julius Hemphill):
Personnel:
Cello – Abdul Wadud, Flute, Tenor Saxophone – Julius Hemphill Percussion – Warren Smith Trumpet – Olu Dara
"G Song"-- Julius Hemphill
From "Raw Materials and Residuals," Black Saint, 1978:Personnel:
Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Liner Notes, Composed By – Julius Hemphill
Artwork [Cover Art] – Bruno Milano, Giuseppe Pino
Cello – Abdul Wadud
Engineer – Tony May
Percussion [Sun Percussion] – Dougoufana Famoudou Môyè (Don Moye)*
Photography By – Giuseppe Pino
Producer – Giacomo Pellicciotti
Producer [Assistant] – Timothy Marquand
Recorded in November 1977 at Generation Sound Studios, New York City
"C"-- Julius Hemphill
(Composition by Julius Hemphill):
From "Raw Materials and Residuals," Black Saint, 1978
Alto Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Liner Notes,
Cello – Abdul Wadud
Julius Hemphill & Abdul Wadud Live in New York - "Echo 1 (Morning)"
(Composition by Julius Hemphill;
arrangement by Hemphill and Abdul Wadud):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Hemphill
Julius Hemphill
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Julius Hemphill @ Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay CA 3/6/88
Julius Arthur Hemphill (January 24, 1938 – April 2, 1995) was a jazz composer and saxophone player. He performed mainly on alto saxophone, less often on soprano and tenor saxophones and flute.[1]
Contents
Biography
Hemphill was born in Fort Worth, Texas,[2] and attended I.M. Terrell High School (as did Ornette Coleman).[3] He studied the clarinet with John Carter,[2] another I.M. Terrell alumnus,[3] before learning saxophone. Gerry Mulligan was an early influence. Hemphill joined the United States Army in 1964, and served for several years, and later performed with Ike Turner for a brief period. In 1968, Hemphill moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and co-founded the Black Artists' Group (BAG), a multidisciplinary arts collective that brought him into contact with artists such as saxophonists Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett, trumpeters Baikida Carroll and Floyd LeFlore, and writer/director Malinke Robert Elliott.Hemphill moved to New York City in the mid-1970s, and was active in the then-thriving free jazz community. He gave saxophone lessons to a number of musicians, including David Sanborn and Tim Berne. Hemphill was probably best known as the founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, a group he formed in 1976, after collaborating with Anthony Braxton in several saxophone-only ensembles. Hemphill left the World Saxophone Quartet in the early 1990s, and formed a saxophone quintet.[4]
Hemphill recorded over twenty albums as a leader, about ten records with the World Saxophone Quartet and recorded or performed with Björk, Bill Frisell, Anthony Braxton and others. Late in his life, ill-health (including diabetes and heart surgery) forced Hemphill to stop playing saxophone, but he continued writing music until his death[4] in New York City. His saxophone sextet, led by Marty Ehrlich, also released several albums of Hemphill's music, but without Hemphill playing. The most recent is entitled The Hard Blues, recorded live in Lisbon after Hemphill's death.
A source of information on Hemphill's life and music is a multi-hour oral history interview that he conducted for the Smithsonian Institution in March and April 1994, and which is held at the Archives Center of the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Discography
As leader
- 1972: Dogon A.D. (Freedom)
- 1975: Coon Bid'ness (Black Lion Records) (re-released in 1995 as Reflections)
- 1976: Live in New York (Red)
- 1977: Blue Boyé (Mbari) (rereleased in 1998 on Screwgun Records)
- 1977: Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels (Sackville)
- 1977: Raw Materials and Residuals (Black Saint)
- 1978: Buster Bee (Sackville)
- 1980: Flat-Out Jump Suite (Black Saint)
- 1984: Georgia Blue (Minor Music)
- 1988: Julius Hemphill Big Band (Elektra)
- 1991: Fat Man and the Hard Blues (Black Saint)
- 1991: Live from the New Music Cafe (Music & Arts)
- 1992: Oakland Duets (live) (Music & Arts)
- 1993: Five Chord Stud (Black Saint)
- 1995: Reflections (Freedom) [A re-issue of Coon Bid'ness]
- 1997: At Dr. King's Table (New World)
- 1998: Chile/New York: Sound Environment (Black Saint)
Compositions featured on
- 1993: Diminutive Mysteries (Mostly Hemphill) (JMT) - by Tim Berne
- 2003: One Atmosphere (Tzadik)
- 2005: The Hard Blues (Clean Feed) - by The Julius Hemphill Sextet
| Title | Year | Label | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Point of No Return | 1977 | Moers Music | ||
| Steppin' with the World Saxophone Quartet | 1979 | Black Saint | ||
| W.S.Q. | 1981 | Black Saint | ||
| Revue | 1982 | Black Saint | ||
| Live in Zurich | 1984 | Black Saint | ||
| Live at Brooklyn Academy of Music | 1986 | Black Saint | ||
| Plays Duke Ellington | 1986 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Dances and Ballads | 1987 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Rhythm and Blues | 1989 | Elektra / Nonesuch | ||
| Metamorphosis | 1991 | Elektra / Nonesuch |
As sideman
With Jean-Paul Bourelly- Jungle Cowboy (JMT, 1987)
- New York, Fall 1974 (Arista, 1974)
References:
- Davis, Francis. "The Julius Hemphill Sextet: At Dr. King's Table". Liner notes. New World Records. (PDF)
