Out To Lunch

Reissue, originally released on CD in 2005. Eric Dolphy’s final studio album is hailed as one of the finest examples of mid-60s post-bop. Dolphy, having recorded the album in February 1964, was in Europe less than six weeks later and his all-too-brief life ended less than two months after that. It marked his last flurry of original compositions and is considered his apex. It is fascinating to consider whether he would have moved past or away from the album in 1965, had he lived
Though Dolphy should not be considered an avant-garde musician by the term’s most common definitions, most interpretations of Out To Lunch have been done by players working squarely in that area. So it is with this album, the most ambitious in its recreation of the five-tune disc (with one original added to the final “Straight Up And Down”, extending the piece to almost thirty minutes). All five compositions from the original quintet LP are revisited in the same order, the record sleeve even duplicates the old album jacket, although a photo taken by Daido Moriyama inside Tokyo’s Shinjuku railway station replaces the enigmatic “Will Be Back” sign. Otomo Yoshihide first came to international prominence in the 1990s as the leader of the experimental rock group Ground Zero, and has since worked in a variety of contexts, ranging from free improvisation to noise, jazz, avant-garde, and contemporary classical