Julius Hemphill

Although Hemphill earned his widest recognition through the World Saxophone Quartet, where many regarded him as the ensemble’s most original composer, his activities as an improvising saxophonist and creator of new music ranged across numerous other formats throughout his career. He moved comfortably between large ensembles and intimate pairings, showing particular strength when writing for unconventional groupings of instruments. The alto served as his principal horn, generating a massive, somewhat abrasive timbre that suggested a length of steel pipe fitted with a saxophone mouthpiece. Commanding technique and a vivid imagination defined his playing; the latter quality surfaced most clearly in his compositions, which fused jazz origins with European classical and African sources.

Clarinet was the first instrument he studied. During high school he switched to baritone saxophone, reportedly drawn to the example of Gerry Mulligan. In Fort Worth he received lessons from the celebrated jazz clarinetist John Carter and performed with local rhythm-and-blues groups. Hemphill entered the army in 1964. After his release he spent time in the band of Ike Turner before relocating to St. Louis in 1968. There he joined the Black Artists Group, a new-music collective whose members included Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, Joseph Bowie, and Baikida Carroll. He founded his own label, Mbari, to issue his recordings; the 1970s Mbari albums Dogon A.D. and Blue Boyé later exerted considerable influence on artists as different as Dave Sanborn and Tim Berne.

Hemphill settled in New York in the middle of the decade. He participated in loft performances and appeared as a sideman on recordings by Anthony Braxton and Lester Bowie. He also made sessions for the Arista/Freedom label. In 1976 he assembled the World Saxophone Quartet with Lake, Bluiett, and David Murray; the group became the most commercially durable and widely known of his ensembles. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s he recorded frequently under his own name for several labels. The 1980 album Flat Out Jump Suite (Black Saint), featuring cellist Abdul Wadud, cornetist Olu Dara, and percussionist Warren Smith, drew strong critical notice, as did his ongoing work with the WSQ. Late in the decade Hemphill and the quartet began an association with Elektra that produced several widely circulated and musically satisfying releases. In 1988 he finally recorded his big-band compositions on the album Julius Hemphill Big Band (Elektra/Musician).

Hemphill departed the WSQ in the early 1990s, a move that left the group conceptually diminished. He then organized a sextet of saxophones that included Marty Ehrlich, Andrew White, and a young James Carter. The ensemble issued two recordings: Fat Man and the Hard Blues, made in 1991, and Five Chord Stud, made in 1993. By the time of the second album Hemphill functioned solely as composer, a deteriorating medical condition having ended his playing career.

Theater also attracted his interest. He introduced theatrical components into the 1977 album Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels and, during the 1980s, composed the extended piece Long Tongues, which he described as “a saxophone opera.” Hemphill’s death in 1995 cut short the work of one of free jazz’s most forward-looking composers.