Eric Dolphy

Eric Allan Dolphy is simply the most important jazz multi-instrumentist ever, if such "rankings" should apply in music.
At ease in any formations, from Chico Hamilton to Ornette Coleman, Dolphy featured, empowered and blew ahead each and every important session of the first half of the 60's.
Taking the right channel on Free Jazz as morning sessions, leading John Coltrane to new grounds in the afternoon, messing extensively with Charles Mingus formations as a pause, he still found time to gig nightly at the Five Spot in historical sets with Mal Waldron and the regretted Booker Little.
Literally blasting Blue Note in three sessions, leaving Prestige with an unmanageable amount of material, Eric Dolphy career had all the sights of an unstoppable storm.
Taking a high speed "A" train for a crazy European tour with brotherly-minded Mingus in 1964, Dolphy brutally passed in somewhat mysterious conditions, leaving a filled of grief Charles Mingus, who retired from music until 1970.

In a five years long time period, Eric Dolphy simply changed the face of music.

Curious people may start with any of the Blue Note or Prestige, possibly with one of the rejoicing Five Spot sessions.