Jazz Articles about Don Cherry

About Don Cherry

Record Label Profile

WEWANTSOUNDS: A Forgotten Don Cherry and Other Gems

by AAJ Staff
July 18, 2018

A forgotten gem from the extensive and multi-colored discography of Don Cherry is available again, courtesy of the French label WEWANTSOUNDS [yes, their name is uppercase only!]. Home Boy, Sister Out, produced by Ramuntcho Matta, was originally released in 1985 on Barclay Records. It was distributed in France and Germany only and was never reissued until now. Funky and fourth-world tinged, with strong influences from the new wave scene of those years, this amazing record reflects not only ...

Album Review

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band: Got A Mind to Give Up Living: Live 1966

Read "Got A Mind to Give Up Living: Live 1966" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
June 11, 2016

Real Gone Music's release of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band's Live 1966 is a godsend for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it reminds, if that's indeed necessary, of what a vital influence on contemporary blues was (and is) this sextet. Forget for a moment the profundity of an integrated group of musicians bonded together at the time of civil rights upheaval in the United States--that's for sociologists. Better instead to focus instead ...

Extended Analysis

Don Cherry: Live in Stockholm

by Florence Wetzel
December 19, 2013

Trumpeter and world-music pioneer Don Cherry had a very special relationship with Sweden, a place he called home for twenty years. And Sweden had a special relationship with Cherry: the country and its musicians recognized the master in their midst, and in 1972 the state-subsidized record company Caprice put out the double album Organic Music Society (which they reissued in 2012). Now with Live in Stockholm, Caprice has gone into its vaults and pulled out three stunning long-form songs from ...

Album Review

Don Cherry: Organic Music Society

Read "Organic Music Society" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
December 4, 2012

Reissued in analog splendor on vinyl, from the original 1972 release, free jazz trumpeter and saxophonist Ornette Coleman sideman Don Cherry renders an early world-music vibe, recorded in Sweden. These days, inferences to “organic" allude to the green movement which has become quite trendy in scope; however, in the hippie culture, organic was often the buzzword for drugs and was frequently cited within the psychedelic vernacular. Here, Cherry and his large ensemble intertwine the east-meets-west vibe for a set that ...

Extended Analysis

Organic Music Society

by John Eyles
September 13, 2012

By the early 1970s, trumpeter Don Cherry had moved a long way--geographically and musically--from the music that had earned him a reputation as one of free jazz's great innovators. Resident in Sweden, he had embarked on a pioneering exploration of world fusion music, incorporating a range of influences, notably African, Native-American, Indian and Middle Eastern. During this period, he still retained some links with his roots; in 1971 he was part of the ensemble that recorded Science Fiction with saxophonist ...

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Reassessing

Something Else!!!!

by C. Michael Bailey
July 21, 2011

Robert Louis Stevenson noted that, “The mark of a good action is that it appears inevitable in retrospect." The middle-to-late 1950s in jazz were populated with several “good actions," all considered inevitable evolutionary reactions to earlier genre, specifically swing and bebop--the latter the complex and elevated jazz style that had dominated the creative American musical structure the decade before, and, to some degree has done so since. These unfolding styles included hard bop--perhaps the most direct descendant of bebop; modal ...

Album Review

Don Cherry: Copenhagen 1963 & Hilversum 1966

by AAJ Italy Staff
February 7, 2011

Diciamo subito che quanto contenuto in questo CD risulta interamente inedito: per metà si rifà a un'esibizione dei New York Contemporary Five alla Radiohusets Koncertstal di Copenhagen il 27 ottobre 1963, per l'altra metà recupera un live di due anni e mezzo dopo (9 maggio '66) in quel di Hilversum (Paesi Bassi), protagonista il quintetto cherryano. Già questi pochi dati ci fanno capire (malgrado una presa di suono magari non immacolata) l'importanza di quest'ora di musica. Al tempo delle registrazioni ...