This composition exists in several forms in the Julius Hemphill Papers, with various scores and parts. Its earliest appearance on a recording is on the unreleased “Janus Sessions” from 1977. The only commercially released recording is for saxophone quartet (soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone) on the World Saxophone Quartet album Dances and Ballads (1987).
An early version for trumpet, alto saxophone, bass, and drums, which appears in Music Manuscript Notebook 3 (MMN3), was apparently the basis for the saxophone quartet arrangement. “Sweet D” was also arranged for saxophone sextet and was included in the performance “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / The Promised Land.” It was published in the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet Collection by Subito Music.
Found on: Dances and Ballads.
From Marty Ehrlich: “Sweet D” shares the same instrumentation as “Sanctified Dreams,” which is the adjacent score in the compositional notebook. There are professionally copied parts for alto saxophone and trumpet, by the same copyist who did parts for Hemphill in the early 70s, which may help date this work.
The archive includes a recording of this piece performed at Weill Recital Hall in Carnegie Hall in 1987. In one of the rare examples in which Hemphill introduces his compositions from the stage in a live performance, he tells the audience: “A colleague and friend of mine is quite popular and deservedly so. Initially upon his coming to New York, him being a young fellow and all that, he acquired the nickname, briefly, of ‘Sweet D.’ This piece is dedicated to David Murray.”