The Late/Great Eric Dolphy and How I Once Saved McCoy Tyner from Christmas Revelries

Eric Dolphy just wonderin’

Following the publication of my book Bright Moments – The Life and Legacy of Rahsaan Roland Kirk in 2000, I wanted to write a biography of Eric Dolphy, but couldn’t find an interested publisher despite having written a few thousand words chock full of recent quotes from legendary musicians I interviewed those who knew, loved and played with him, like Ornette Coleman, McCoy Tyner, and Andrew Hill. Although a few publishers liked the subject and felt it was worthy, the bread didn’t smell very good, as Lester Young might have said. Nonetheless, I finished a 6,500-word feature on the great man and then discovered I couldn’t find a magazine that was interested. Why? they wanted to know should they publish an article on him? Was there a new boxset coming out? Was it a milestone birthday? Was the legendary multi-instrumentalist turning 75, or 100? Eventually, I gave up and gave the article away to a small, struggling magazine called Sound Collector, and moved on to other projects.

   The reason why I’m writing this today is not because it’s Eric’s birthday (June 20, 1928) or that there’s a new boxset coming out that I know of… the reason is to recall the circumstance of my interview with the late/great McCoy Tyner, which took place on Christmas Day, 1998. I had called Tyner a few months earlier to see if he was available to talk, but he was busy at the moment and said, “Do me a favor, call me at 10 AM on December 25th.” I said, “Uh, McCoy, that’s Christmas morning.” He replied, “I know what day it is!” “Okay, I’ll talk to you then…”

   So, Christmas morning, 1998, rolls around and  I call him exactly at 10 AM: “GOOD MORNING! MERRY CHRISTMAS!” a woman, presumably Mrs. Tyner cheerfully answers the phone. “GOOD MORNING! MERRY CHRISTMAS!” I reply… “Is McCoy available?” “Who should I say is calling?” she asks. “John Kruth,” I replied. Unfamiliar with my name, she asked the reason for my call and replied… “Mr. Kruth, it’s Christmas morning! Can’t this wait for another time?” “Well, he asked me specifically to call him today, at this time,” I explained. “Okay…” she groaned…”McCoy!!! There’s someone on the phone, calling you for an interview!!!” “Thanks,” I hear him say. “I’ll take it in the other room!” And that’s how I saved McCoy Tyner from Christmas… Here’s some of what he had to say about the late/ great Eric Dolphy…

The Late/Great pianist McCoy Tyner

   “Eric was a very, very gifted musician and a very nice guy on top of it,” McCoy Tyner told me. “He had a very personal approach to playing and enjoyed expanding the limits of imagination. Eric played so many instruments, his pockets were bulging with all these mouthpieces,” McCoy said, chuckling at the memory. “He was the first guy to come on as a guest with the band. At the time he came along he was doing his own thing and made a tremendous impression. We felt that the quartet was self-contained. Jimmy, Elvin and I felt that we had built something and were still on that journey. We didn’t exactly understand where John was going in terms of adding Eric. We were like little kids in a sense like this is our band and we want to keep it that way. But then again it wasn’t like we didn’t want to share our experience. John was the leader, and he was the one that made the final decisions. He decided that maybe if I do this, this will cause something else to happen. And it did! They played so differently. Eric added another dimension to the sound. John never rested on his laurels. He was like a scientist in the laboratory always searching for something new or different. By adding Eric, he was expanding the music. John and Eric had a very different type of life experience. Eric had a very academic approach. He studied a lot. John coming from the South had that real gutsy approach. His father was a minister, and his grandfather was a minister. He spent a lot of time in church, and you could hear that in the music. At the same time, there were points where the two met and could make something very interesting happen.”

   “Eric added a very interesting component to the music,” McCoy continued. “John believed in what Eric was doing. He wanted to help him. At the same time, he wanted to open the music up. It was a very good experience for Eric as well, being surrounded by the quartet. Olé was one of the highlights of Eric’s presence. He had his own approach to the bass clarinet. He had personal things he would do on the instrument and got sounds out of it that you normally didn’t hear on a bass clarinet. He was very animated and very enthusiastic.”

Some of the quotes from my long-lost article on Eric wound up in the liner notes to this lovely album from Resonance Records.