Eric Dolphy’s Out to Lunch!: a quintet without a piano

There is no pianist on Out to Lunch!, recorded on February 25, 1964. Eric Dolphy and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson join trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, bassist Richard Davis and drummer Tony Williams. Dolphy alternates bass clarinet, flute and alto saxophone: five people, but several possible ensemble colours.

Hutcherson had already caught Jackie McLean’s attention by accompanying horns with four mallets, “like a piano,” as he recalled in his National Endowment for the Arts interview. Dolphy later came to hear McLean’s group and invited the vibraphonist to record. The connection began before this album.

Yet filling the pianist’s place need not mean filling every space with chords. Critic Thomas Cunniffe notes that Hutcherson sometimes accompanies a soloist with a single note. His account of “Gazzelloni” also follows the pulse nearly dissolving during Hubbard’s solo, then the band gathering energy beneath Hutcherson. A change of soloist can alter everyone else’s part.

Follow the accompaniment in Gazzelloni: how many players sound together?