Don Cherry is mainly known as one of the pioneers of free jazz from the trail blazing Ornette Coleman Quartet. Images of him playing some variation of the trumpet (pocket trumpet, cornet, etc...) come to mind. However, much of his musical career involved him traveling the four corners of the earth and participating in musical forms that sometimes had no resemblence to jazz. In time he became a seasoned multi-instrumentalist of a wide variety. He was a true student and explorer. Initially, this seems to have been a personal journey into his African heritage, but it clearly struck an inspired nerve in him that never went away. His experimentation with world music can be heard as early as 1968 on Eternal Rhythm, a live recording from the Berlin jazz festival. Other stellar examples of this progression would include his Mu sessions recorded for BYG Actuel in 69 as well as Actions (co-led by Kryzstof Penderecki) and Blue Lake from 71. Over the remainder of his career he covered a lot of territory. As I researched this, 1978 seems to have been an especially rich year for him in this regard. If you were to listen to the following recordings in their entirety, you might find some things you don't like, or at least I did. Some tunes border too closely to a new age sound that I'm not entirely comfortable with. However, there is a great deal to glean here as evidenced (i hope) by the following selections. Please dig in. I hope this inspires new pathes of interest and research. Cheers!
Recorded At Studio Davout, Paris, France, June 1978.
Original LP release 1982 (Europa Records JP2009).
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CODONA (ECM 1132)
Recorded September 1978 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
Recorded September 1978 at Tonstudio Bauer, Ludwigsburg
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Another sideman session also done in 1978, but less suited toward this post can be found here.
Below is a short documentary filmed in Sweden the same year and broadcast on Swedish television.
It was the thing that originally inspired this post. Enjoy.
It was the thing that originally inspired this post. Enjoy.
Great post, man....nice extensive info. This is definitely going to give direction to my digging. I especially like the Eternal Rhythms track....I really enjoy the gamelan influences that infiltrate the track midway through.
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