Julius Hemphill : Composer

Compositions A-E

#3

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There is a one-page score in the archival collection for a piece by this title, which differs from the piece titled #Three. The score is for alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, guitar, cello, and drums. There is a full AABA melody in the alto part, transposed for alto, and a set of chord changes in the cello and guitar parts. The score includes instructions for the drums and a marking that the soprano saxophone should play ad lib under the alto. 

From Marty Ehrlich: This is a complete work, a ballad, and it looks quite nice. It is for the same instrumentation as was used on the Tim Berne-Julius Hemphill collaboration, Diminutive Mysteries (Mostly Hemphill) (1993).

Bells

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No known score or parts; present in the archive only on archival recordings. See Cuid 20696, Cuid 20745, and Cuid 20749 in Archival Audiovisual Material.

From Marty Ehrlich: At some point in the mid 1970s, Hemphill was visiting Malinké Elliott, his close theatrical collaborator from BAG. They got access to a lumber industry salvage yard, called Zinneger Brothers Salvage. Oregon is a center of the lumber industry, and the salvage yard was full of old saws and picks, some of them very large—used to cut down trees before the advent of power tools.

Hemphill and Elliott were given access to this shed and lumber yard at 6:30 PM, after the work day had ended. They had brought their friend Greg Daugherty to do the recording. Greg had a good reel-to-reel machine and numerous mics, excellent equipment for the time. They went around the warehouse, found what had resonance, and hung these pieces up on the rafters of the shed. Julius, always the DIY artist, had already made mallets out of tree sticks and rubber tires.

They started recording at midnight. They recorded close to an hour of music.

Hemphill and Elliott integrated “Bells” as atmospheric music into their multi-disciplinary work, “Ralph Ellison’s Long Tongue,” and perhaps they used it in other theatre works they developed in the late 1970’s. Hemphill improvising with the tape playing during his solo concerts, using it as his rhythm section, if you will. 

Clarinet

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Composition for solo clarinet, evidently an etude, found in Music Manuscript Notebook 2 (MMN2). No known recording.

From Marty Ehrlich: This piece is three pages of solid notes, without rests—there is no place to breathe, which is interesting coming from a woodwind player. It is virtuosic writing, deeply chromatic, uses the full range of the instrument, and is full of arpeggiated patterns.

Hemphill once told me he was not a big fan of the clarinet as a solo instrument in jazz (John Carter was probably the exception), but he liked the bass clarinet. He usually had me play the latter when he included me in his small groups. He had started with clarinet in junior high school, but once he had an alto sax he never returned to it.

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Blue Boyé

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From Marty Ehrlich: In many ways, this two-LP recording from 1977 can be seen as a single work. Hemphill notated the compositions in a series, entitled “First Blues” to “Eighth Blues,” in Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MMN1). In this annotated list, the eight compositions appear under their individual titles: Antecedent, Countryside, C.M.E., Dirty Row, Homeboy Tootin’ at the Dog/Star, Hotend, Kansas City Line, and OK Rubberband.

Found on: Blue Boyé

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