Julius Hemphill : Composer

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Kansas City Line / KC Line / K.C. Line

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Composition performed and recorded by various ensembles under different titles throughout Hemphill’s career. It is represented in the archive with various scores and parts. Its first appearance on a commercial recording is as an alto saxophone solo on Blue Boyé (1977). Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MMN1) includes a part for this version, where it bears the title “Sixth Blues.” Hemphill later arranged it for big band as one of the movements of the suite Drunk on God, recorded on Julius Hemphill Big Band (1988). In Drunk on God, the piece is titled “Gates of Kansas City.” In other scores or parts in Hemphill’s hand, it is titled “Short Circuit” or “Bop Scene: KC Line.” “Kansas City Line” was also incorporated into the large-scale work “Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera.” On the duo album with Peter Korwald, Live at Kassiopeia (recorded in 1987), Hemphill’s “Solo II” is a version of “Kansas City Line.”

Found on: Blue Boyé, Julius Hemphill Big Band, Live at Kassiopeia.

From Marty Ehrlich: The theme to “Kansas City Line” is a ten-bar blues. In a sense, Hemphill gets rid of what is called “the turnaround” in measures 11 and 12 of the typical blues form. Hemphill’s solo version of this work on Blue Boyé is a tour-de-force, reflecting how he heard and extended the bebop vernacular developed by Charlie Parker.

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Ji-Ji Tune

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Composition for saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone). This piece was originally part of the suite “Wind/Rhythms,” composed for the World Saxophone Quartet’s collaboration with Max Roach & M’Boom, a concert at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine on June 26, 1981. It was later recorded by the Julius Hemphill Sextet on the posthumous album At Dr. King’s Table (1997), and was published in the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Quartet Collection by Subito Music.

Found on: At Dr. King’s Table. 

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Mystery to Me (It’s A)

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Composition for alto and baritone saxophones, guitar, cello, and drums, included on the album by Tim Berne of Hemphill compositions, Diminutive Mysteries (Mostly Hemphill) (1993). The archive includes a score in holograph.

Found on: Diminutive Mysteries (Mostly Hemphill).

From Marty Ehrlich: This work was originally composed for the musical/theatrical presentation in 1976 in St. Louis entitled Coon Town Bicentennial Memorial Service. Hemphill wrote it for distinguished soul and gospel singer Fontella Bass. (See Archival Audiovisual Material  for further context.) 

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Echo 1 (Morning)

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Duet for alto saxophone and cello, recorded by Hemphill with Abdul Wadud on the album Live in New York (1978).

From Marty Ehrlich: Although Hemphill was a prodigious composer of notated music, he chose at times to do an open improvisation with his colleagues on a given recording. In this case, Hemphill added titles to the improvised pieces: “Echo 1 (Morning)” and “Echo 2 (Evening).”

Found on: Live in New York.

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