Appreciation : Hemphill Sounded a Vital Creative Link

The last performances of Julius Hemphill, who died Sunday in Manhattan at age 57, were arduous experiences, both for him and his audiences. The saxophonist-composer, once a vigorous and outgoing performer, lost a leg a few years ago as the result of complications from diabetes, and in his most recent appearances looked wan and detached as he played his instruments from a wheelchair.

But the physical problems he endured in his final years did not diminish the breadth or vigor of Hemphill’s creative imagination. The 1990s alone featured performances of his “Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera,” “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin/The Promised Land” (for dancer Bill T. Jones) and “Plan B,” premiered in 1993 by the Richmond Symphony.

Hemphill came into jazz at an exciting time. In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the world of music and art was a hotbed of cross-disciplinary activities--jazz players improvising spontaneously with dancers, “happenings” that mixed film, theater and jazz.

Hemphill’s work, first in St. Louis with the Black Artists Group in the ‘60s, and later in New York in the ‘70s via his initial recordings, made it evident almost immediately that he would become a unique force not only in contemporary jazz, but as one of the vital links in the interactivity between jazz, dance, performance art and contemporary classical music.

He did it with an unerringly original style and a depth of substance that was not always apparent in the avant-garde jazz of the period. The frenetic squeals and cries, the multiphonics and random bursts of sound characteristic of his saxophone and flute playing were clearly techniques drawn from Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane, but Hemphill used them in a highly personal, and often surprisingly engaging fashion. And when he co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet in 1976, he was instrumental in recasting traditional views of the jazz saxophone section.

Despite his many accomplishments, Hemphill never quite broke through to the attention of the larger jazz audience. But his recordings and compositions will continue to testify to his important role in the jazz of the ‘70s and ‘80s.