Don Cherry

Don Cherry introduced a mode of humility to improvised music which previously would have only been seen inside of monastaries. An incredibly competent player, he embraced none of the showmanship commonly found in jazz and focused on shaping his eccentric and friendly trumpet playing into prayer and humble devotion, he sourced many of his musical ideas and instruments from ethnic traditions and thus was a progenitor for world music as well. As an often sought after session musician he played with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler and with figures outside the jazz tradition in electronics like Terry Riley, Jon Appleton and even Lou Reed - anybody who wanted to work with his humanistic and Ornette Colemanian attitudes.

Before his world-faring music as band leader he was member of Ornette Coleman's Quartet which acted as the seed for his own ideas in free-jazz, Coleman's psychological playing and idosyncracies like staying in high-register are audible influences in Cherry. The archival release Live at Café Montmartre 1966 documents a fiery session in the Coleman tradition but wildly more expressionistic, and shows how explosive free-jazz can be controlled in Don Cherry's format of well-composed suites. His debut release as leader Complete Communion included his former Coleman quartet bandmate Ed Blackwell and took the compositions from Live at Café Montmartre 1966 turning them colossal, each song being 20 minutes. The songs ebb in and out of playful melodies and exploratory improvisations, each line twisting and dancing around each other. Parallels can be drawn to the colossal songs of Ornette! (1962) in their monothematicism and dedication to harmolodics but Cherry's compositional ideas were a huge innovation. The emphasis on structured melody is much higher than on the wild Live at Café Montmartre 1966 but Cherry returned to the previous explosive energy with an expanded septet on Symphony for Improvisers with similar side-long suites.

Cherry took jazz on an exciting path with his blend of free-jazz and composition which gave dynamic qualities to his music and a sensation of things being alive and breathing - free-flowing. He would introduce another angle of exploration to his sound in the direction of ethnic and folk musics. He borrowed international scales and instruments like a Gamelan ensemble for Eternal Rhythm, the sense of felt community in his work grew, moving away from the cities of America and moving towards the vibrant landscapes of Africa and South-East Asia.

Ditching the ensemble he played the duet session "mu" first/second part with drummer Ed Blackwell with whom he has strong connection to after playing together on many records. They independently went on tours to have contact with ethnic musics in regions of Africa and Asia and their collaboration here is not just a celebration and showcasing of these musics but their deconstruction to an essence which cannot be pinpointed to any tradition, a wholly new musical language. Ed Blackwell's drum playing is highly song-like and complete, with movements of dance, polyrhythm and release, Don Cherry's trumpet and flute is ghostly and human at the same time, a conduit for thoughts towards higher powers. The earth-like and tribalistic quality of the rhythms combined with Cherry's prayers and call for holy communion forms a complete picture, uniting both the material and immaterial whose divide is often an outstanding question in people's spirituality. There is as much philosophical communication happening here as in scripture, or more accurately it is religion before scripture. "mu" has more in common with concepts of Dharma than anything of jazz tradition before or after and stands as testament to the communicative and metaphysical potentials of music.

Where Is Brooklyn? with Ed Blackwell, Pharoah Sanders and Henry Grimes is a nostalgia for the harmolodics of Coleman after the world-faring of Eternal Rhythm and "mu", and showcases an explosive sound Coleman would make himself on the future Science Fiction.

A collaboration with Jon Appleton on synthesizers yielded Human Music. The electronics are narrow in their frequency range at any given time and form a very sparse wistful atmosphere, they mimick the sounds of nature in wind, insects, water and interpreted feelings coming out of ground and air. The multi-instrumental work of Don Cherry populates the desert landscape with figures both in communion and awful fear of the Earth. It may be that the feelings in this record are the ones people of the past had when creating folk monsters and legends when observing their surroundings, like the Youkai from the people of Japan.

Don Cherry's aptitude as leader for ceremony and meditation can be seen on Organic Music Society and the live work Orient where hymns are sung and words of dedication and spiritual guidance are spoken in candid and assuring manner. Cherry's ability to bring many timbres together creates expansive and evolving soundscapes, particularly on disc two of Organic Music Society.

Don Cherry's want for ethereal atmospheres created Eternal Now, Gamla Stan may be some of the most psychedelic music in which boundary between drone and discrete sounds becomes indistinguishable. Love Train doesn't sound dissimilar to the spiritual melodies one could hear from Pharoah Sanders but the overall effect is more monk-like in attitude, and Bass Figure for Ballatune is an extreme exercise in minimalism and devotion. Moving Pictures For The Ear and Tibet showcase Cherry's creativity in reinterpreting ethnic tradition and instruments. A similar formula is used for Relativity Suite, the psychedelic nature is lesser but the compositions are more dynamic and less demanding. March of the Hobbits with Ed Blackwell on drums is one of the greatest songs in jazz tradition and speaks of great community and elation, very fitting for Blackwell's sound reminiscent of New Orleans marching band and his history tied to it.

The monk attitudes and mysticism of Don Cherry's music are lesser on Don Cherry/Brown Rice, but it can nonetheless be an uplifting and playful listen.

El Corazón is a duet session with Ed Blackwell on drums like "mu", Don Cherry here returns to his compositional format of suites. It doesn't share the same philosophical depth of "mu" but it does offer many folk sensibilities, sparse atmospheres and is a valuable recording of Ed Blackwell's ability to create entire songs on the drum-kit.

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Don Cherry was married to Moki Cherry, an artist who would design textiles used on his sets and some textiles and paintings are used for his album covers (Where is Brooklyn?, "mu" first/second part, Eternal Now, Relativity Suite, Organic Music Society, Brown Rice). Several of his grandchildren and children became musicians, most notably Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry.

Don Cherry passed away October 19, 1995.