The double album OPEN AIR collects, for the first time, the complete catalogue of compositions for saxophone quartet by f the visionary reed master Julius Hemphill (1939-1995 ), mainly for the groundbreaking Saxophone Quartet, co-founded by Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and Hamiet Blueitt, and rounded by David Murray, but also one piece written for the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet. These pieces were composed between 1978 and 1989, created on and through the saxophones, and, with a few exceptions, specifically for a saxophone quartet, with flutes and clarinets added occasionally. These pieces use the saxophone choir as Hemphill’s voice, singularly and collectively.
American, New York-based multi-reedist master Marty Ehrlich, one of Hemphill’s close collaborators and protégés, who is the chief researcher for the Julius Hemphill Papers in the Downtown Collection of the Fales Library at New York University, arranged these seminal pieces. Ehrlich was the musical director of the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet from 1996 to 2006, and the curator of the Julius Hemphill Composer Portrait concerts. Ehrlich co-produced the recent edition of Hemphill’s archival box set, The Boyé Multi-National Crusade For Harmony (Archival Recordings (1977-2007)) (New World, 2021), Hemphill’s masterpiece, Dogon A.D, (New World, 2026), and this year released a duo recording with Hemphill from 1982, Circle the Heart (Relative Pitch, 2026)
Ehrlich says that this collection was born out of his desire «to hear Julius’ vivid and evocative pieces close together, shining from the inside out». About a third of these pieces were discovered posthumously during his archival work with Hemphill’s boxes of scores and parts gathered at his publisher, Subito Music. Ehrlich arranged these pieces for saxophone quartets in six galleries (Open Air, Another Feeling, Cool Red, Romance in Time, Border town, and Fixed Signs), each one casting its own light on Hemphill’s work, and added the ballad, «What I Know Now», from the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet’s album, At Dr. King’s Table (New World, 1997), with Ehrlich as the main soloist on it, in memory of fellow saxophone players, Andrew White and Sam Furnace, who took part in this recording. The album’s cover artwork is by Hemphill’s longtime associate, Oliver Lee Jackson, from 1978.
Flutist master James Netton observed in his liner notes that Hemphill’s «harmonic progressions hold mysterious twists and turns that give beauty a new name. There are so many memorable melodies composed on the tablet of his heart that remain within and reveal new layers. Like Ellington, Strayhorn, and a precious few others, his timbral language revealed the painter/musician whose colours, voicings, and paint strokes help us to understand his truly visionary timbral language. His rhythmic vocabulary celebrates his hearing of his DNA’s voices along with his extensive multicultural studies of the language of groove».
OPEN AIR is an inspiring work of love that will, hopefully, trigger more interpretations of Hemphill’s great compositions. This brilliant, expansive, and versatile collection is far from merely historic (though it definitely is) or nostalgic. OPEN AIR addresses Hemphill’s legacy as a vivid, life-affirming, and always relevant one, played passionately and imaginatively, and faithfully follows Hemphill’s evocative, orchestral, singular inner logic, with brief, economical solos. This collection encapsulates Hemphill’s inclusive musical language, free from genre conventions and «wide as all outdoors», as Hemphill himself defined it. Hemphill masterfully wove elements from blues, rhythm n’ blues, African music, and jazz into a highly personal, expressive and soulful aesthetic that «continuously flowers as his stories are told», as Ehrlich concludes.
Eyal Hareuveni
Marty Ehrlich (soprano saxophone, alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, Clarinet, flute, alto flute), Rob DeBellis (soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, clarinet, alto Clarinet, bass clarinet, flute), Lisa Parrott (soprano saxophone, alto saxophone), Jeff Lederer (tenor saxophone), Andy Laster (baritone saxophone), Brian Landrus (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone, bass clarinet, flute), Allan Chase (soprano saxophone, alto saxophone), Jason Robinson (tenor saxophone), Sam Furnace (alto saxophone), Andrew White (tenor saxophone), Alex Harding (baritone saxophone)
