Eric Dolphy

Featuring: Booker Little, Mal Waldron

condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Insert included. No obi.

The Five Spot's first volume again, this time in the Japanese SGD series pressing - collectors of Japanese vinyl will know exactly what that series means for surfaces, weight and presence, and will already be reaching for the phone. Eric Dolphy and Booker Little, one July night in 1961, in the band that had everything: Mal Waldron's brooding harmonic architecture, Richard Davis's enormous ears and elastic time, Ed Blackwell's second-line lift keeping the revolution danceable. Little's solo on "Fire Waltz" alone has launched a thousand trumpet obsessions and ended a few complacent careers; Dolphy's bass clarinet on "Bee Vamp" remains a masterclass in controlled wildness.

Different edition, same miracle - and comparing Japanese pressings of sacred material is one of this hobby's honest, harmless pleasures, indulged here at the source. For the Dolphy shelf that takes editions as seriously as the music deserves. The night keeps giving, pressing after pressing.