Julius Hemphill : Composer

Compositions A-E

At Harmony

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Hemphill arranged this piece for a variety of ensembles. The archive includes a score for alto saxophone and cello, a score for alto saxophone, guitar, bass, and drums, and a full score and set of parts for big band, all in Hemphill’s hand. The piece “KC Line,” a ten-bar blues, appears on the reverse side of one of the alto saxophone parts.

From Marty Ehrlich: The big band arrangement includes a 24-measure song form for improvisation, used on Julius Hemphill Big Band (1988).

Found on: Julius Hemphill Big Band (1988).

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At Dr. King’s Table

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Composition for saxophone sextet (soprano, 2 alto, 2 tenor, baritone), originally written for the dance piece “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / The Promised Land.” There are professionally copied parts in the dedicated archive folder; the full score is included with “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / The Promised Land.”

From Marty Ehrlich: This work was used during a dance segment of “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin” that started and ended with the tableau of the Last Supper, i.e., Dr. King’s Table. 

Found on: At Dr. King’s Table.

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Astrid

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Composition for quartet featuring soprano saxophone, guitar, bass, and drums. This is an uptempo, eighteen-measure piece with a notated tag: AABA + tag form. Folder contains holograph score, in pencil, and professionally copied parts in manuscript. 

From Marty Ehrlich: The score has a lot of other information, including phone numbers for David Murray and Stanley Crouch, who I believe shared an apartment on the Bowery, for Verna Gillis of Soundscape, and for the Village Gate. There is also an address for Will (Connell), a saxophonist Hemphill knew from their time together in the army. Connell was the copyist for many of Hemphill’s works over the years.

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Ascension

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Composition for saxophone sextet (2 soprano, alto, 2 tenor, baritone), composed for “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / The Promised Land.” There are professionally copied parts in manuscript in the dedicated archive folder; the full score in holograph is included with “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / The Promised Land.”

Found on: At Dr. King’s Table.

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Antecedent

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Improvised flute solo featured as one of the movements of the album Blue Boyé (1977). The eight sections of Blue Boyé are notated in Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MMN1), with the titles “First Blues,” “Second Blues,” etc. One page of the notebook features the title “Fourth Blues: Uttered Flute” in a decorative compartment, without any musical notation. That title likely corresponds to “Antecedent” on Blue Boyé.

Found on: Blue Boyé.

From Marty Ehrlich: The frame Hemphill drew around “Fourth Blues: Uttered Flute” decorates and ritualizes it, if you will. Hemphill had a unique voice on flute and made extensive use of singing, uttering, growling, and talking into the flute, techniques that I believe were part of his longstanding creative engagement with African retentions. Two more examples of his distinctive and virtuosic flute vocabulary appear on “Home Boy Tootin’ at the Dogstar” on Blue Boyé, and in his opening to “The Painter” on Dogon A.D. (1972).

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