The Illinois Concert Eric Dolphy Blue Note, 1999 Buy it online Tracks 1: Softly as in a Morning Sunrise 2: Something Sweet, Something Tender 3: God Bless the Child 4: South Street Exit 5: Iron Man 6: Red Planet 7: G.W. Reviewed by Claude Lalumière	A live album, if well recorded, is the perfect medium for jazz. Sure, there are great studio albums by jazz musicians, but the energy of a great concert can propel jazz to epic heights. Further, I'm a huge fan of 1960s avant-garde. Thus, when I inserted Eric Dolphy's The Illinois Concert -- a previously unreleased recording of a 1963 performance -- into my CD player, I was flushed with hopeful excitement. I was not disappointed. On this date, Dolphy -- playing his usual trio of instruments: alto sax, bass clarinet, flute -- is accompanied by Herbie Hancock on piano, Eddie Khan on bass and J.C. Moses on drums. Two of the seven tracks feature an extended orchestra: the University of Illinois Brass Ensemble on "Red Planet" and the University of Illinois Big Band on "G.W." And most of the album is made up of Dolphy compositions. This is a fabulous document of a great concert. It sizzles with energy. Dolphy is clearly the dominant voice and the band knows this. Although they all take center stage at some point or other -- Hancock is especially fluid on piano -- they play to highlight Dolphy's performance and ideas. The whole thing is redolent of a wild ecstatic love of music and of playing music. The sound and format of this quartet is highly reminiscent of Coltrane's classic quartet from the late Atlantic/early Impulse! era: furious playing and interaction that urgently strive to express a beauty both savage and fragile. Also, the two tracks augmented with larger ensembles recall the similar "quartet plus" arrangements of Coltrane's The Complete Africa/Brass Sessions. Not surprisingly, Dolphy was an active creative voice in Africa/Brass. A further Dolphy/Coltrane connection revealed itself when the first notes of "Red Planet" reached my ears: for what I was hearing was, to me, a Coltrane tune. On this album, "Red Planet" is credited as a Dolphy composition, while the same tune's appearances on Coltrane's Impulse! albums -- there titled Miles' Mode -- attribute composition to Coltrane. Although the full story behind this confusion is not known (and probably never will be, as both Dolphy and Coltrane died all too young in the 1960s), the liner notes to Coltrane's The Impulse! Years and to this Dolphy release reveal that critical consensus points to Dolphy as the likely composer, or at least co-composer. In any case, Coltrane and Dolphy were friends and collaborators, not opponents. They both strove, by playing deeply personal music, to create exciting, ecstatic sounds that challenged listeners' ideas of jazz and music. The Illinois Concert is such a sustained assault of intensely beautiful music that no one track jumps at you. The whole album stands out as an indispensable musical event. | April 2000 Claude Lalumière is a Blue Coupe magazine contributing editor, as well as a freelance writer, editor, translator and publishing consultant. He owned and ran danger!, Montreal's chart-topping mid-1990s alternative bookstore. His published criticism can be found on his Web site.	This is a fabulous document of a great concert. It sizzles with energy. Dolphy is clearly the dominant voice and the band knows this. Although they all take center stage at some point or other -- Hancock is especially fluid on piano -- they play to highlight Dolphy's performance and ideas. The whole thing is redolent of a wild ecstatic love of music and of playing music.