Free-flying Eric Dolphy veered into the contrarian zone in his musical approach on his one and only Blue Note album, Out to Lunch. Breaking away from the clichés of postbop jazz and speaking boldly on his array of instruments (flute and alto sax as well as bass clarinet, seldom heard at the time but sounding profoundly visceral in his hands), Dolphy displayed the avant-garde modus operandi to expect the unexpected. The sometimes abstract and off-kilter yet often whimsical album turned heads and opened ears immediately, and it has gone down in jazz history as one of the genre’s masterpieces. A must-hear. A best bet. A revelation.
