Coltrane vs. Dolphy in: Impressions, First Blood!

From Down­beat, Nov. 1961:

At Hol­ly­wood’s Renais­sance club recent­ly, I lis­tened to a hor­ri­fy­ing demon­stra­tion of what appears to be a grow­ing anti-jazz trend exem­pli­fied by those fore­most pro­po­nents [Coltrane and Dol­phy] of what is termed avant garde music.

I heard a good rhythm sec­tion … go to waste behind the nihilis­tic exer­cis­es of the two horns. … Coltrane and Dol­phy seem intent on delib­er­ate­ly destroy­ing [swing]. … They seem bent on pur­su­ing an anar­chis­tic course in their music that can but be termed anti-jazz.

Eric Dol­phy died 42 years ago this week.

[See also: “John Coltrane and Eric Dol­phy Answer The Jazz Crit­ics”, Down­beat, April 1962]