Don Cherry - s/d

Cherry's appearance on 'Escalator Over The Hill' is one of the real highlights of that alb.

Yeah, that 'Communion' reish is terrif; I also really like the 1988 'mainstream' alb 'Art Deco', which features a tenor player called James Clay, an underrecorded Texan contemporary of Ornette's, plus the classic rhythm section of Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins.

Has anybody heard that recentish BBC concert recording?

and i always had a feeling i wouldn't like Ornette. i have no idea why, just one of those prejudices you build up from stuff you read. i'm sure if i had some, i'd totally dig it. the only Ornette record i have is "Dancing in Your Head", one of his free-funk albums, which i love with all my heart.

thanks for these threads jason. plenty to check out.

'brown rice' might be my don cherry OPO, and i'm a big fan. the blue note trilogy is fantastic (esp. "symphony for improvisers"), and yeah, i'll second the "escalator over the hill" nod.

'eternal now' hasn't been mentioned yet, so i'll throw it out. it's cherry and the swedes in smaller ensembles, with some piano work and wooden wind instruments. it's a strong step towards the less identifiably "jazz", more uniquely "don cherry" music.

You do owe it to yourself to listen to him with Ornette. I have a special fondness for his work on the Complete Science Fiction Sessions, there's some fire on that shit.

http://users.northroute.net/~rpepper/celebs/doncherry2.jpg

wait, he plays music too, you say? THIS i gotta hear!

thee t

the two sets are trios. one is cherry, his wife mocqui on tamboura (ouch) and bennik. the other is cherry, johnny diani and okay tamiz (don't ask, i don't know).

the pieces seem compositionally similar to the "eternal rhythm" and "w/ penderecki" albums but they lack the power of those big groups and also ramble on more. can you imagine mu pts. 1+2 played w/ the E.R.O. (i can't). it doesn't help that the sound uniformly sucks and the percussion is generally pretty flat.

the one bright spot is a 20 minute improv on the "si ta ra ma" vocal chant that's mostly unaccompanied cherry. well, there's a bongo, but damned if i register anything but cherry. sounds dubious, i know, though i love it love it love it.

the albums most similar to humus are "eternal rhythm" and "eternal now" because they feature large ensembles. "orient" is similar in aim but it has a much smaller group of players. because it is a live album though it has similar energy. "mu 1+2" are also similar but it's a duo, and a studio recording, so it's much more meditative and less kinetic than "humus".

"humus" is very similar to pharoah sanders late 60s and early 70s work: "tauhid", "izipho zam", "karma" and "summun bukmun umyun" are definite must-haves. they are more focused and polished than cherry's work but similar in the blend of eastern and western motifs, and the energy playing, and the wild percussion, etc. also check out early alice coltrane (ptah the el daoud, world galaxy, universal consciousness) and maybe late john coltrane (crescent might be a good starting point). possibly even clifford thornton or archie shepp in morocco or even the jazzactuel 3cd reissue sampler box, that may be a good start.

these are similar to "humus" in overall sound but not in the way "humus" uses several different forms over the course of a composition - free playing giving way to funky stuff giving way to an eastern section or a ragtime or whatever. if i remember correctly, that is unique to "humus" in cherry's recordings. so for that angle, maybe check out the early 70s work of the art ensemble of chicago, sun ra, and charlie haden (particularly the liberation music orchestra recording mentioned above).

Seeing him and his battered pocket trumpet really got me into Ornette and then Jazz in general.

http://www.mingeringmike.com/images/lps09_20.jpg

http://www.mingeringmike.com/images/lps03_20.jpg

Another good'un not mentioned yet: Vibrations, possibly my favourite Albert Ayler record.

More?

i may have mentioned this on another Don Cherry thread (or a terry riley thread), but there's a tape of the two of them playing sometime in the mid-70s that is one of the greatest things I've ever heard. it's reallyreallyreally beautiful.

I want that

http://davecook.blog-city.com/don_cherry.htm

^ terry riley / don cherry

I love you

Is there anything more from that session?

cos it's fucking great.

I've been told to listen to rip rig & panic by a lot of people but haven't got round to it yet.

another brown rice-related revive. one of my favorite favorite records, so beautiful.

no one's mentioned New York Eye & Ear Control on this thread? Fucking all star line-up: Cherry, Ayler, Roswell Rudd, Sonny Murray ...

once got into a heated convo with a disgruntled co-worker about what does or (pointedly) DOES NOT constitute "music" upon the playing of that album

Been loving Old & New Dreams Playing. "MOPTI" especially.

picked up that cherry & latif khan thing today, on the rec of whoever compared it to brown rice. listening now, and it's glorious. simpler and much rawer in terms of production, but lovely playing and songs, def very similar in vibe. curious now to hear the holy mountain soundtrack stuff.

wtf at this audience picking up on the rhythm of "humus"

http://i05.s2.imagehosting.ws/2010-06-05/300255/000e030f_medium.jpeg
Here's that album cover again, just 'cause I loved it so much and you can't see it anymore

i listened to codona 3 this morning

apparently i just listened to the second side of codona 3 on 45 w/o knowing

I'm immersing myself in Hear and Now a lot in the last few weeks. The loose, funky, hippy grooves are so great. A real summer album. The Psychemagik mix re-alerted me to it. Anyway, the review hear and and the comment made me lol; http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=35491

The album is a truly gross example of Walden's schtick: bombastic cock-rock lead guitars, lumbering bass ostinatos, leaden drums, warbling background vocals, a faddish veneer of exotic mysticism and a sub-Wagnerian taste for dramatic shifts in dynamics.

uh, sign me up. these are the reasons i love it!

I know! Serious jazz critics, eh. A review on Amazon mocks Cherry's attire on the cover, I would love an outfit like that. ..a faddish veneer of exotic mysticism..

paging pete sm1th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8Ht-ySDMGA&sns=fb

whoa wtf definitely watching this when i get back from the post office.

it's hella @_@

cool. feels like a half-baked hippie student film project, but the music is lovely.

really digging on Relativity Suite lately. here's a more recent link to it: http://flashstrap.blogspot.com/2011/02/spiriyual-jazz-obsession-don-cherry.html

great cover art, too.

don is high as shit in that forest scene

if you like relativity suite, and u havent already heard eternal now, YOU MUST

i wish don would come back and hang w me in a chicken coop :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTUwpExgtAs&feature=player_embedded#!

shoot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTUwpExgtAs

"hear & now" are STINKAH!
"human music" are P Dick's "martian time slip"
"orinet" an "blue lake" is very good pleasure

welcome aboard, iglu ferrignu

blue lake IS a good pleasure. that's a good way to put it. love his vocalizing on that one.

just posted a pretty wonderful Codona live performance over here: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/34711278070/new-light-you-could-waste-a-lot-of-time-trying-to
what a cool band.

wow I never knew Cherry played on the Audio Leter album!! Sue Ann Harkey is the best.

http://www.discogs.com/Audio-Letter-It-Is-This-It-Is-Not-This-Neti-Neti/release/1694821

I saw Don Cherry live, solo, some time in the second half of the 80s. I liked it but I don't remember much a this point, except that he played lots of different instruments and it was fairly laid back.

does anybody have the credits to the holy mountain soundtrack?

I have it at home somewhere in the DVD box (I only have El Topo on my ipod)

i listened to Brown Rice over the weekend and my almost-five-year-old daughter thought it was hilaaaaarious. "what is this guy doing?!"

Sorry if already mentioned, but leave us not forget Mr. C's input re The Bells and Between Thought and Expression. Also here (get it while you can):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2GQQ6OelDo

and here (Wiki say DC co-wrote)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvkeqXFtiKw

Also, Neneh Cherry & The Thing's The Cherry Thing is a fave of recent years; think Don would have dug it.

i listened to Brown Rice over the weekend and my almost-five-year-old daughter thought it was hilaaaaarious. "what is this guy doing?!"

lol

daughter otm also great album

Really enjoying the "See You in a Minute: Memories of Don Cherry" CD (2006)
by Berger Knutsson Spering trio and guests including Nenah and Eagle-Eye on a couple vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz9zTzbNwjo

Begnt Berger's Bitter Funeral Beer with Cherry has been in my heavy rotation this past year, really wonderful hybrid of Eurojazz and African traditional. The concert footage transcends the LOL 80s garments (or maybe it's enhanced by it) tho' Cherry himself cuts a sharp profile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALp9N_lS_b8

came here to post a track from the "bitter funeral beer" record ... yeah, it's good !

can't believed i missed picking up a copy of this 2xLP

just classic classic cherry with the dollar brand / carlos ward line-up that's also on "the third world-underground" recorded only a week apart in nov. '72

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvFRTZLyASg

"why don't you try brown rice?"

love to hear him sing

Well, for one thing, it's that it's actually not my music, because it's a combination of different experiences, and different cultures, and different composers, that involves the music that we play together, or that I'm playing when I'm playing alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M6U7gZ0np4

linked to upthread but now long-gone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4ox2IAo3g0
Don Cherry & Terry Riley ‎– Tambourinen Session, Copenhagen, 1970

i somehow only recently learned that Sandy Bull played with Don Cherry at various points. Where are the tapes!???

hmm i wonder if billy higgins was the link there

anyway, learning this just now ! very intriguing

here you can find william parker talking about playing with don cherry and sandy bull:

http://archive.soundamerican.org/sa_archive/sa14/sa14-the-interviews.html

sandy bull discussion comes in c. 7min

JC: How big was the group that he invited you to play with?

WP: Well, we had Ed Blackwell, we had Billy Higgins, we had Frank Lowe [...] Sandy Bull was playing oud. So it was a big group. And I had been playing with Frank Lowe already [...] and this materializes as tapes of this concert now. Which I have somewhere, someone gave me a CD of it.

somebody call william parker !!!

heyo!

William Parker: You see, Don could play with anybody. He could go to Turkey and play with the Turkish musicians. Go to Africa, go to Egypt, go to India. He could play with Lou Reed, he could play with Muddy Waters. And then you could say, "Oh wow, that's Don." He would never lose his identity no matter what kind of music he was playing, but he could always feel comfortable in playing any kind of music.

[...]

In Don's world, it was that everything is music. You know, the melody, the rhythm, the folk, the electronics, 'cause he's done stuff with electronic music. So he had no fear of any kind of music. Which shows you that it's not the style of music, and it's not the content of the music. It's the soul and spirit of the music that makes it work.

^ highly recommend listening to the whole interview

nice thanks ... seems like there's definitely a recording.

http://www.bb10k.com/PARKER.disc.html

June, 1975 / The Five Spot, New York City

—The Cherry Quintet was at the Five Spot from the 3rd through the 8th. No exact date on this, but it does not match 75.06.07.
1. unknown title [33:17]  (incomplete, cuts in at beginning, out at end)
"Just heard snippet of ‘Butterfly Friend,’ one of my favorite songs..." —Steven Joerg

"Frank Lowe said it was Sandy Bull in an interview he did at WKCR-FM [during] a Don Cherry festival..." —Ras Moshe

"...I met Don Cherry. He invited me to play at the Five Spot with him in '75 for a week, my first gig at a major jazz club."
—William Parker interview/article by Steve Holtje, WIRE #152 October 1996 p.24

Don Cherry (tp, el-p, voc), Frank Lowe (ts), Sandy Bull (g, oud?, perc?), William Parker (b), Roger Blank (dr)
{WP Archive CD-R; New York Magazine June 9, 1975 p.25; Steven Joerg 03.08.28; Ras Moshe 03.02.04}

wonder how one gets a hold of that ..

WP would have been around 23 at the time

dang!

“benny banana on trumpet, benny banana !”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaQrKnnxsz0

(@3:31)

you just love to hear him sing