This album contains the following compositions:
by Editor
Composition for solo flute, found in Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MMN1), where it has the title “Eighth (Flute).” It was recorded on the album Blue Boyé (1977).
Found on: Blue Boyé.
From Marty Ehrlich: At this point in his career, Hemphill had made his flute into a ritual object, with copper wire wound around it and dimes soldered onto the tone holes.
by Editor
Composition for undetermined instruments, recorded as the fifth track on the album Blue Boyé (1977), on which Hemphill plays all the parts through overdubbing. The score appears in Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MM1), where it is titled “Fifth Blues.” It takes the form of two twelve-tone rows with transpositions.
Found on: Blue Boyé.
From Marty Ehrlich: In the notebook, there are two twelve-tone rows that are then transposed up a fourth and a fifth, calling to mind the I, IV, and V chords of the standard blues progression. It seems plausible that, as compositionally conceived, “Dirty Row” combines the elements of a twelve-tone row and the blues harmonic progression.
by Editor
A composition for flute, soprano saxophone, and alto saxophone, this is first track on the album Blue Boyé (1977), in which Hemphill plays all parts through overdubbing. Its score appears in Music Manuscript Notebook 1 (MMN1), where it is titled “First Blues.”
Found on: Blue Boyé.
by Editor
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).
The Julius Hemphill Papers is an archival collection at New York University. The collection contains scores, audiovisual documentation, and other material related to the life and career of composer and saxophonist Julius Hemphill. Materials are accessible by appointment. Click here to learn more.