Eric Dolphy

Eric Dolphy played alto saxophone, flute and bass clarinet, and on all three he sounded like no one else: wide, leaping intervals, vocal cries and squawks, and lines that darted off at odd angles yet always landed. He was in demand across early-60s jazz, playing with Charles Mingus and John Coltrane and on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz.

Out to Lunch!, recorded for Blue Note in 1964 with Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Hutcherson, Richard Davis and a teenage Tony Williams, is his masterpiece: angular, airy compositions where Hutcherson's vibraphone hangs chords in space and the rhythm section stretches time like elastic. Dolphy died suddenly in Berlin a few months later, aged 36, before the album was released.