Last Date

Hylkema's portrait of the late jazz multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy certainly talks to the right people. As well as the expected survivors of Dolphy's European and Mingus periods - said Mingus: 'Eric, I'm gonna miss ya, asshole' - we go all the way back to Roy Porter, Buddy Collette and his bride-to-be in LA, and neighbours who heard the teenage prodigy practising his eight hours a day. No wonder he told pianist Mischa Mengelberg he was lazy. Dedicated, clean-living Dolphy had diabetes - Gunther Schuller puts it down to diet deficiency, since the jazzman survived on white beans and water when broke - but when he was admitted to a Berlin hospital in 1964, the authorities, assuming he'd overdosed, left him to die. Lots of old footage of Dolphy in action, mainly on bass clarinet .