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Don Cherry
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music:
"Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they've always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing period. That whole groove of music and ballrooms and dance and what it meant in the late 30's and up into the 40s. So I was raised around all that type of music. But what was happening after especially moving to Watts, what was happening in our neighborhood, there was musicians…Dexter Gordon, Wardell Grey, Sonny Criss, all these people that were from the neighborhood…and what was happening in rhythm and blues…"
Don cut his teeth on bebop, like most young musicians of his generation. In one of those historic moments that defy reason, Don met young saxophonist Ornette Coleman in a record store on 103rd Street, and was soon playing with Coleman's seminal quartet which also included bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Billy Higgins. The group cut the landmark album Something Else!!! , ushering in the new Free Jazz movement. The group recorded several other albums and free jazz became an established jazz innovation during the 1960s. Cherry worked with other artists, including John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and Albert Ayler, who were all becoming instrumental in the greatest developments in jazz music since the birth of bebop.
By the dawn of the 70s, Cherry was touring Europe, Asia, and Africa regularly and becoming versed in the musical heritage of a variety of countries. He began learning to play many different instruments, including wooden flutes and the doussn'gouni, a kind of cross between a guitar and a sitar. It was at this time that Cherry began to play the Pakistani pocket trumpet, a miniature trumpet of approximately 8" in length. He began to play the instrument extensively, and it became his favorite. The tone was quite unusual, as was Cherry's facility to play a flurry of notes without appearing to break a sweat, a la Miles Davis. But his sound was a bit more refined, sweeter, and even more laid back than Davis' (!) partly because of his unusual choice of instrument.
Cherry began to incorporate influences from various ethnic musics into his own jazz work and created performances with his Swedish wife, Moki, that were not only musical but also visual. Much of what Cherry did in the 70s laid the groundwork for what has come to be known as "world music". During the 1980s and 90s his stature as a figure in the world music movement grew, and he played and recorded prolifically. He formed a new quartet with Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell (who had played with Ornette Coleman as well) and Dewey Redman. They revisited the work done by the original Coleman quartet and extended the concepts begun there. He also formed a trio, Codona, with Collin Walcott and Nana Vasconcelos.
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Ornette Coleman: Free Jazz to Ornette! Revisited
by Alberto Bazzurro
Che cosa si può dire ancora di un'opera che ha stravolto il corso del jazz, uno di quegli snodi dopo i quali--qui fin dal titolo--nulla può essere più come prima? Punti di svolta decisivi e ineludibili che cambiano il corso di un'arte, pietre miliari come Les Demoiselles d'Avignon in pittura, l'Ulysses di Joyce in letteratura, o più specificatamente in poesia Un coup de dés di Mallarmé? Nulla, appunto, perché tutto dev'essere per forza di cose già stato detto e scritto, ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler With Don Cherry: 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed
by John Eyles
In 2020 the ezz-thetics label released the two-disc CD European Recordings Autumn 1964 Revisited which comprised the six November 9th 1964 radio recordings made in Hilversum, the Netherlands, by the quartet of Albert Ayler, cornetist Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, “Angels," “C.A.C.." “Ghosts." “Infant Happiness" (composed by Don Cherry), “Spirits" and “No Name." That album also contained nine other recordings by the same quartet, made in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 1964. In 2016, the HATology label, ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler / Don Cherry: Albert Ayler With Don Cherry 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed
by Chris May
It is possible that in his liner notes for this album, Brian Morton has unraveled the riddle that is Albert Ayler. Was he a genius? A hoaxer? An outsider artist before the term was coined? A person in the grip of autism? An avant-gardist who decided to become a (whisper it) populist? A religious evangelist? A leather fetishist? An out-of-his-tree stoner? The list goes on, the speculation will continue, and it is permissible to tick multiple boxes, or none. But ...
Continue ReadingOrnette Coleman: Free Jazz To Ornette! Revisited
by John Eyles
For ezz-thetics' revisited series' fourth Ornette Coleman album, the label has ventured back further than any of its previous Coleman albums, to New York City in December 1960 and January 1961. Recorded at A&R Studios on Wednesday December 21st 1960 from 8pm to 12.30am, the Free Jazz session produced two pieces, the thirty-seven minute “Free Jazz" itself, which was issued in September 1961 on an Atlantic album entitled Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation By The Ornette Coleman Double Quartet, and ...
Continue ReadingDon Cherry: Where Is Brooklyn? & Eternal Rhythm - Revisited
by Stefano Merighi
Nel percorso artistico di molti, è decisivo il rapporto tra emancipazione ed auto-affermazione. Il jazz moderno è spesso testimone di una dialettica feconda tra individualismo e trama collettiva, ma è dirimente il tema dell'originalità. “Se sei come tutti gli altri, a che serve il jazz?," diceva spesso Monk. E un vero “percorso," costellato da innumerevoli stazioni, è stato quello di Don Cherry, mai del tutto soddisfatto delle sue conquiste, costantemente messe in discussione. Ammesso e non concesso che Cherry sia ...
Continue ReadingArchie Shepp, Don Cherry, John Thicai, Don Moore, J.C. Moses: Copenhagen 1963 Revisited. Live Jazzhus Montmartre
by Stefano Merighi
Questo concerto registrato al Jazzhus Montmartre di Copenhagen risale a una settimana esatta prima dell'assassinio di JF Kennedy a Dallas. E già questo colloca il nostro ascolto in un contesto, in un'atmosfera specifica. Ma in quel 1963 venne assassinato anche Medgar Evers (il 12 giugno), tra i più autorevoli attivisti afroamericani, freddato da un suprematista bianco e celebrato in questo disco dal brano di Archie Shepp “The Funeral." Shepp sosteneva che la musica, sempre, è sia un fenomeno ...
Continue ReadingCherry, Redman, Haden and Blackwell: Opening The Doors Of Perception
by Chris May
ECM's audiophile vinyl reissue series Luminessence has a simple mission statement: it is to showcase albums that have “changed perceptions of creative music making." The series kicked off in April 2023 with Kenny Wheeler's Gnu High (1976) and Nana Vasconcelos' Saudade (1979). These are to be followed towards the end of June 2023 with Old And New Dreams' Old And New Dreams (1979) and Gary Burton's The New Quartet (1973). Some of the Luminessence albums will come in facsimiles of ...
Continue ReadingCaz Plak To Release Don Cherry & Okay Temiz's Music For Turkish Theatre On Vinyl
Source:
Matthew Hutchison
The fourth chapter in the partnership between Turkish jazz percussionist Okay Temiz and Istanbul-based record label Caz Plak is a special release that is seeing light 54 years after its inception. Music For Turkish Theatre, the soundtrack composed by Don Cherry and Temiz and commissioned by the revered novelist and civil rights activist James Baldwin for his and renowned Turkish stage actor/director Engin Cezzar's adaptation of John Herbert's play Fortune And Men's Eyes, will be released by the forefronting jazz ...
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Caz Plak To Release Don Cherry Trio 'The ORTF Recordings Paris 1971' On Vinyl
Source:
Matthew Hutchison
The second chapter of Caz Plak's ambitious Turkish Jazz Trilogy will be released next month with three region-specific vinyl LP releases of The ORTF Recordings Paris 1971 by Don Cherry Trio, in line with Caz Plak's curatorial efforts in showcasing the far-reach of Turkish Jazz's influence. The Istanbul-based label has licensed two recordings of Don Cherry's work from the archives of the legendary Parisian jazz label BYG Records. These recordings feature joint performances with long-time Don Cherry Trio members, Turkish ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they've always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they've always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
Don Cherry in Copenhagen, 1965
Source:
JazzWax by Marc Myers
Throughout his career, Don Cherry favored the stubby but warm pocket cornet and was most closely identified with the free jazz and avant-garde jazz movements. In the late 1950s, he recorded with Ornette Coleman (Something Else!!!, Tomorrow Is the Question!, The Shape of Jazz to Come, Change of the Century, This Is Our Music), Paul Bley (The Fabulous Paul Bley Quintet) and John Coltrane (The Avant-Garde). In the '60s, he recorded additional albums with Coleman as well as with Steve ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they've always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they\'ve always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they\'ve always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they\'ve always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
Jazz Musician of the Day: Don Cherry
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating Don Cherry's birthday today!
Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, OK in 1936 and raised in Los Angeles, where he first began to play the trumpet and later piano. According to Cherry, his upbringing had everything to do with his interest in music: “Yeah, well I was fortunate to have such great parents…because they\'ve always been around music. My Father was a bartender, and he was very much into the music of the swing ...
read more
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