This recording brings together the forty known compositions for Saxophone Quartet by Julius Hemphill (1939-1995). These works were composed between 1978 and 1989 for performances with the World Saxophone Quartet. These compositions are, with the fewest of exceptions, written specifically “on” the saxophone quartet.  He will at times set a piece written for his small-group ensembles onto the saxophone choir, but in the main, this music is created on and through the saxophones. He uses the saxophone choir as his voice, singularly and collectively. It is the place where his protean compositional ear can fully and continuously flower as his stories are told. 

Julius engendered two great artistic collectives: the Black Artist Group (BAG) of St. Louis (1968-1972) and the World Saxophone Quartet in New York City. The saxophonists Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett join him in both endeavors. WSQ is rounded out by tenor saxophonist David Murray. WSQ becomes a groundbreaking concert ensemble of the New Jazz, performing the works of all its members and headlining festivals in Europe and America throughout the 1980s and beyond. The WSQ recordings are essential listening. WSQ will record two-thirds of the compositions Julius wrote for the ensemble.  The other third of these compositions are discovered posthumously during my archival work with the boxes of scores and parts gathered at his publisher, Subito Music.

From 1977 to 1995, Julius consistently writes for the saxophone choir, with flutes and clarinets added occasionally. It starts with his two multi-tracked, overdubbed works, “The Blue Boye’” and “Roi Boye’ and the Gotham Minstrels”, and his large-scale work of 1977 for seven saxophones, entitled “Water Music for Woodwinds”. From here, he always has a saxophone ensemble to write for, through the years with  WSQ and then the Julius Hemphill Saxophone Sextet from 1989 to 1995, dovetailing into his Bessie award-winning scores for the “Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin: The Promised Land” with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and “Long Tongues: A Saxophone Opera.”

When the work of establishing the Julius Hemphill Archive at New York University was completed, in 2020 or so, I turned my attention to the important counterpart to his archive, having complete editions of the oeuvre of this most individual of composers. Working with each passage of these compositions, even after years of playing Julius’ music in his varied ensembles and his Sextet, I marveled at the way each piece has its own expressive imperative.  This recording displays these saxophone quartet “portraits” in six galleries. They each cast their own light. I will end with a homage I have written for this dear friend who left us too early but left us so much.