Eric Allan Dolphy, Jr. (Los Angeles, June 20, 1928 – Berlin, June 29, 1964) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, bass clarinetist and flautist. On a few occasions, he also played the clarinet and piccolo.
Dolphy was one of several multi-instrumentalists to gain prominence
around the same time. His use of the bass clarinet in jazz performance
probably finally established the instrument in the music, and he
extended the vocabulary and boundaries of the alto saxophone, and was
among the earliest significant jazz flute soloists.
His improvisational style was characterized by the use of wide intervals, in addition to using an array of extended techniques to emulate the sounds of human voices and animals. Although Dolphy's work is sometimes classified as free jazz, his compositions and solos were often rooted in conventional (if highly abstracted) tonal bebop harmony and melodic lines that suggest the influences of modern classical composers such as Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky.
in Wikipédia
