There's little question that Dolphy's time on the planet was too short, and the number of performances captured with tapes rolling too few, so that almost everything in the Dolphy catalog is kind of special. In 1961, Dolphy was recorded more extensively while on tour, whether stateside for the immortal Five Spot stint in July with Booker Little and co., or later in Europe for the Copenhagen and then Stockholm tours in September, or here for the "Berlin Concerts" in August (oh yeah, and don't forget the Village Vanguard dates with Coltrane in November). You can hardly argue the greatness of the Five Spot pairings with Little and bandmates Mal Waldron, Richard Davis, and Ed Blackwell -- and it's true that able sideman support was lacking for the European concerts, with most of the critical nod going to the Copenhagen run (recorded as the three-volume "In Europe" series on OJC). But the Berlin Concerts are under-rated and in the abbreviated Dolphy bag, well worth owning! So, what do we have here? "Berlin Concerts" was taken from two gigs at the Funkturn Exhibition Hall and the Club "Jazz Salon" in Berlin on August 30, 1961 and features Dolphy with what even the liner notes describe as the "very straight-forward rhythm section" of drummer Buster Smith, bassist Jamil Nasser, pianist Pepsi Auer, and trumpeter Benny Bailey. And, unlike the scandalously short-shrifted 30+ minutes of music on each of the OJC "In Europe" discs (why the heck doesn't OJC re-release this with some consolidated packaging!?), everything's sandwiched together here for over 70 minutes of live Dolphy doing some extended blowing on all three of his virtuoso horns (flute, alto sax, bass clarinet).
