This week in Texas music history: Jazzman Julius Hemphill born in Fort Worth

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On Jan. 24, 1938, Julius Hemphill was born in Fort Worth. An alto and soprano saxophonist, flutist, vocalist, composer and label founder, Hemphill blazed a trail through the avant-garde jazz landscape in a variety of outfits, including solo performances, duos, small ensembles, big bands and multidisciplinary collaborations.

Hemphill attended Fort Worth’s I.M. Terrell high school, where he was a football star and studied music with noted clarinetist and composer John Carter. Hemphill worked with rhythm & blues and jazz acts around the Southwest until 1966 when he moved to St. Louis. There, he was a founding member of the Black Artists Group, a multi-disciplinary collective of artists, musicians, dramatists, dancers and activists.

He established his own record label, Mbari, in 1971, and released “The Collected Poem for Blind Lemon Jefferson,” a collaboration with poet K. Curtis Lyle. In 1972 he recorded “Dogon AD,” featuring the cellist Abdul Wadud, with whom Hemphill developed a significant ongoing partnership. Both projects pushed the boundaries of jazz performance in the Black Power era.

In 1977, the Italian label Black Saint released the album “Raw Materials and Residuals” and helped to amplify Hemphill’s profile abroad. That same year Hemphill released a multi-tracked flute, soprano and alto saxophone record, “Roi Boyé & The Gotham Minstrels: An Audio-Drama.” Hemphill then co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet, a four-horn ensemble that could swing even without a traditional rhythm section.

His final recording, 1994’s “Five Chord Stud,” found Hemphill in failing health and unable to blow for the session, but he still composed the music and conducted the studio ensemble. He passed in 1995, a stellar artist from the virtual firmament of Fort Worth’s I. M. Terrell alumni, as Ornette Coleman, King Curtis, Dewey Redman and Prince Lasha also walked its halls in their high school years.

Sources:

Julius Hemphill, interview by Suzanne McElfresh, Bomb, January 1, 1994.

Dave Oliphant. Texan Jazz. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.

Seymour Wright, “A short guide to Julius Hemphill,” The Wire, March 2021.

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