Originally recorded for Alan Douglas’ Douglas label, Eric Dolphy Jazz Prophet: The Expanded 1963 New York Sessionsis a deluxe, limited-edition re-release that comes in a gatefold sleeve, complete with copious liner notes and rare photographs, plus a remarkable 85 minutes of Dolphy’s music that has never been previously released. These sessions, from 1 and 3 of July 1963, originally produced the albums Iron Manand Conversations, which have subsequently appeared in part or whole on labels such as VJLP, Fontant, Exodus, Joy, Epitaph, Affinity, Trip, VeeJay, Le Jazz and more, all of variable sound quality. In contrast, this well produced Resonance re-release comes on three 180gm vinyl audiophile pressings that reproduce the sound exceptionally well.

Album one comprise Conversationsplus two previously unissued takes of ‘Muses for Richard Davis’; album two comprises Iron Manwith the bonus track ‘A Personal Statement’, while album three comprises seven previously unissued alternative takes. With the passage of time (over 50 years), the original Douglas albums (and other re-releases) have accumulated clicks and pops and things that go bump in the night. These new pressings are clean, which is especially valuable when listening to the duo tracks with Dolphy on either flute or bass clarinet with Richard Davis on bass, where surface noise could be intrusive. Conversationsand Iron Man form a bridge between key albums under Dolphy’s own name for the Prestige label – Outward Bound(1960), Out There(1960), Far Cry(1961) and At The Five Spot (1961) – and his seminal Out To Lunch!(1964). They capture him in solo and duo settings and performing his own music with a handpicked ensemble, capturing a true jazz original at his best, Resonance’s three-disc set is of great historical significance and should be in every contemporary jazz collection alongside those classic albums by Miles Davis, Mingus, Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane.