Eric Dolphy at the Five Spot, Vol. 2

1. Aggression 16.34
2. Like Someone in Love 19.27

Eric Dolphy - flute, bass clarinet
Booker Little - trumpet
Mal Waldron - piano
Richard Davis - bass
Eddie Blackwell - drums

Recorded at the Five Spot, New York City: July 16, 1961.
Recording Engineer - Rudy Van Gelder


today, december eighth, is a wednesday. my first day off in weeks. it was a good day, mostly sunny and sixty degrees. my hopes were up this morning as i left my home and headed downtown.

as a side, i would like to say, that i am currently interning at nashville public television, the PBS affiliate, and my main duties of late, outside working camera on live TV during the pledge drive, have been oriented around a documentary called, "memories of downtown nashville." the last week or so i transcribed over seven hours of interview with native nashvillians who recall downtown's glory days, from the 1930s-70s.

anyway, so after hearing these seniors talk enthusiastically about nashville's downtown i just had to see those few remaining sights and buildings.

began my walk, up the hill and 4th ave, away from broadway. the first stop on my list was the arcade. an indoor / outdoor mall, based on a florentinian design, and one of the first arcades in the country. its about one hundred years old. today the business folk were eating chinese, mexc=ican, pizza, hotdogs, burgers, and greek next to the pigeons and homeless. it is sort of like an unglorified quincy market. i had a polish sausage, some cold potato wedges, and a soda. something tells me that the mall isnt as tastey as it once was.

ex-mayor and current u.s. representative, richard fulton, has this to say about the arcade:

The Arcade was, uh, at that time was, ah real novelty. There were not many Arcades in the country, I'm not sure whether this, the local Arcade, was the fourth or fifth or the tenth, but there were very few of them in the country and, hmm, I do, um, the Arcade had Flight Brothers Shoes was in the Arcade, uh, there was a post office there, uh there, the uh Planters Peanuts had a store there. They, uh, had a gentleman that would walk up and down the Arcade with a, uh, peanut uh costume on and he would hand out roasted peanuts by a spoon. Uh, I do, uh, remember quite a few people that would just, well, they'd get a number of peanuts as a result of walking back and forth, and each time they'd walk, walk by the peanut man he'd put a spoon full of peanuts in their hand.

But, uh, Flight Brothers was there, there was also a small grocery store, uh, in the Arcade at that time and then there were offices above the first floor. The stree…street level of retail, there were offices on the second floor, uh, I think there was a tailor shop there, and I don’t remember, I never made it up to the second floor very often but, uh, there were a number of businesses that were on the second floor, but the main activity was, was on the street level and the Arcade, uh, of course, uh, was, uh, one of the main assets people would come to Nashville just to see the Arcade.

after walking through the mall i caugh left, and south, onto fifth avenue, to make my way to church street. church street used to be the heart, the life of the town. the department stores caine and sloan and harvey's were there, as well as the loew's and paramount theaters. the candyland and b&w as well as krystals were also on church street. it was at one of these places, or a similar cafeteria style lunch bar where the first sit-ins of the civil rights movements occurred. you may not know this, but people life dr. martin luther king, jr. came to these early nashville sit-ins to learn about non-violent protest. dr king says, "i came to nashville not to bring inspiration, but to gain inspiration from the great movement that has taken place in this community." anyway all those old great attractions on church street have been destoyed.

once on church street i stopped by the hermitage hotel, a historical building dating back to the civil war, and the only one of nashville's three great hotel's that remain standing. richard fulton once has campaign offices in the hermitage, back when "local politcal campaigns had headquarters in hotels," and amelia edwards was waiting in the lobby of the hermitage for a frat meeting to adjourn so that she could go on a date on a sunday afternoon when she learned that pearl harbor had been bombed. needless to say this is a beautiful building, with a elegant lobby, exceptional first floor restrooms, and nice hallways on the fifth floor. i do say that this would be a great place, to uh, spend the night with r should she come to town.

following the hermitage i made my way to sixth avenue. while nothing of note remains there now, i took pride in the fact that i was the only person on that street that knew that 6th was once called, "smart sixth avenue," because of all the high class shopping that occurred there.

i ended my downtown adventure at the new library which is simply gorgeous, even if they have more shelf space than books. at the library i checked out a czech film about trains, criterion, and four or five jazz cds, most of which were eric dolphy discs that i hadnt heard.

after downtown i went to the burbs to find some new work shoes, and along the way, i sampled the dolphy discs and was ecstatic in driving. these cds, all different in shade and texture, reminded me what a joy listening to jazz music can be, and how much jazz i have not heard.

edemame