Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy Live at Palais des Congrès in Liège

In early 1964 two of the jazz greats, Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy, joined forces on a European tour that represented a shift in the development of African-American music. The bop, swing and New-Orleanean leanings of Mingus were giving way to a freer, more challenging style, and the tonal harmony embedded in Dolphy's compositions had become more abstracted, more angular. This mirrored a widespread rejection of convention amongst jazz musicians determined to stretch their art and reclaim it from the commercialization of the Big Band Era.