condition (record/cover): NM / NM

Insert included. No obi.

April 1960, Van Gelder's new studio in Englewood Cliffs, and the first record under Eric Dolphy's own name. Everything that made him unrepeatable is already fully formed: alto lines that leap intervals nobody was using, a bass clarinet sound that had essentially no precedent in jazz, and a flute tone taken straight from birdsong. What makes Outward Bound so satisfying is how firmly it stays inside hard bop while doing all this. Freddie Hubbard plays gorgeous conventional trumpet, Jaki Byard comps with wit, George Tucker and Roy Haynes swing hard, and Dolphy simply walks off in his own direction over the top of it.

Japanese New Jazz pressing. One of the great debut albums, and the ideal way into a discography that gets considerably wilder from here.