Don Cherry
From the very beginning, Los Angeles-raised Don Cherry (1936) displayed an anti-virtuoso attitude that contrasted with the ruling dogmas of jazz music. Cherry shunned both acrobatic exhibitions and radical experiments in favor of humility and pathos (thus appealing more to the rock crowd than to the jazz crowd). His style focused on the idiosyncratic timbres of his pocket trumpet and on languid phrases that evoked ancestral worlds via the abstraction of exotic styles, predating Jon Hassell's "fourth world" music (and the whole world-music bandwagon) by more than a decade.
From the very beginning, Los Angeles-raised Don Cherry (1936) displayed an anti-virtuoso attitude that contrasted with the ruling dogmas of jazz music. Cherry shunned both acrobatic exhibitions and radical experiments in favor of humility and pathos (thus appealing more to the rock crowd than to the jazz crowd). His style focused on the idiosyncratic timbres of his pocket trumpet and on languid phrases that evoked ancestral worlds via the abstraction of exotic styles, predating Jon Hassell's "fourth world" music (and the whole world-music bandwagon) by more than a decade.
Complete Communion Live
Complete Communion was Don Cherry's first Blue Note release. One of the groundbreaking pieces of work from the mid-sixties Jazz scene, and here is the same great line up caught live in Hilversum (Holland) in May 1966, just five months after the studio recording session. Don Cherry - cornet, Gato Barbieri - tenor sax, Henry Grimes - bass and Ed Blackwell - drums, a marvelous quartet based on four of the most distinctive Free Jazz voices of the time. This highly energetic performance consists of a…
Live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival
Small repress available, in process of stocking. The mid 80s were a pivotal period for Don Cherry. Much of his energies had been devoted to co-op projects like Codona and Old and New Dreams and he also helped jumpstart the Leaders. The time being ripe to form his own ensemble, Cherry created Nu, a quintet with saxophonist/flutist Carlos Ward, bassist Mark Helias, percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and drummer Ed Blackwell. Live at the Bracknell Jazz Festival, 1986 confirms Nu to be an ensemble that …
Music, Wisdom, Love 1969
Milestone! Reaching a near-mythical status amongst fans of free jazz's most worldly intrepid explorer, these seldom heard Paris soundtrack sessions known as Music, Wisdom, Love have evaded collectors' grasps and confused historians for exactly 50 years. Instigated in Paris in 1967 and filmed during Don Cherry's downtime on a visit to the Chat qui Pêche nightclub in March 1967, where he played with Karl Berger, Henri Texier, and Jacques Thollot, the bulk of this cinematic portrait was filmed on t…
Ghosts
"I have to admit that this record contains some of the most intriguing and wicked music I ever experienced. And I say that from the point of view of a John Coltrane aficionado. Well, Ayler and his mates Don Cherry on trumpet, Sonny Murray on drums and Gary Peacock on bass guitar are definitely on par with the before mentioned god of free jazz and others like Ornette Coleman. If you listen to this album from the pop music perspective you may find only screeching and overblown saxes and some non s…
Live In Koln February 23, 1975
2016 Repress. A legendary recording that pairs Don Cherry’s heavenly trumpet stylings, Terry Riley’s psychedelic/minimalist organ work and the vibes of Bengt Berger in a great live concert recorded in Koln in 1975. Riley is in stunning form playing the kind of endlessly rippling dosed organ drones with a sense of stasis in expansion that is uniquely brain-razzing. Cherry’s playing is heart-stoppingly beautiful, curling slow, melancholy arcs and threading high angel tones through Riley’s e…
Don / Jon
Rare outtakes from early pioneering and controversial electronic jazz experiments presented on vinyl for the first time. This previously unpressed music provides and absolutely essential insight into Zen master experimental jazz outrider Don Cherry on the eve of his fertile Holy Mountain period which saw the composer combine all his well-travelled influences – such as the free music incubation of France and Germany with the traditional instrumentation of India, north and west Africa – then retur…
Live At Cafe Montmartre 1966 Volume Two
"Don Cherry, more than any other artist in the jazz of his era, pioneered the music's internationalist nature that has now come to be commonly accepted as an integral part of its character. The individuality of Cherry's contribution to the history of jazz has often been unfairly obscured by his admittedly important association with the music ofOrnette Coleman. While the (pocket) trumpeter's position as Coleman's front line partner in the altoist's first revolutionary quartet was indeed a major o…
New York Eye And Ear Control
Originally released in 1966. Featured artists: Albert Ayler (tenor sax), Ed Blackwell(trumpet), Don Cherry (trumpet, cornet), Sunny Murray (drums), Gary Peacock (bass), Roswell Rudd (trombone), John Tchicai (saxophone, alto sax). Michael Snow is a Canadian national treasure, a true Renaissance man. He assembled a stellar group to improvise a sound track for his art film, titled Walking Woman, featuring a silhouette that is rumored to have been inspired by Carla Bley. Digitally remastered. Manufa…
Tibet
Grey-area LP reissue, originally released as Eternal Now on Sonet Records in 1973. Don was living in Sweden at the time and made 2 great spaced-out records (in the freeform "Universal Music" style) for Sonet (Live Ankara being the other) -- the prior CD reissue of this material has seemingly disappeared into the wind. If this album had been made by some Vietnam vet living in a windowless cove in Northern California -- with a picture of leaves on the cover, no less -- it would have made the NWW l…
Complete Communion
2015 reissue. Not counting a couple of sessions he co-led with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, Complete Communion was the first album Don Cherry recorded as a leader following his departure from the Ornette Coleman Quartet. It was also one of the earliest showcases for the Argentinian tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri, who Cherry discovered during a stay in Rome. While the music on Complete Communion was still indebted to Coleman's concepts, Cherry injected enough of his own personality to begin d…
Modern Art - Live in Stockholm 1977
2014 Release. This first ever LP issue includes the full history about Don Cherry and his legendary recordings from the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, January 16, 1977. The album Modern Art is basically something very unique, a kind of Hear And Now unplugged concert recorded at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. It is unclear if any other recordings from the Hear And Now era survived. If not, then this album is a once-in-the-life opportunity to experience. Everyone who has heard Modern Art…
Eternal Rhythm
2016 repress. Gatefold exact repro reissue of Don Cherry's classic Eternal Rhythm Group, recorded at the Berlin Jazz Festival, 1968. An amazing line up of: Cherry (cornet, gender and saron [gamelan], flutes), Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone), Eje Thelin (trombone), Bernt Rosengren (tenor sax, oboe, clarinet, flute), Sonny Sharrock (guitar), Karl Berger (vibes, piano, gender), Joachim Kühn (piano, prepared piano), Arild Andersen (bass), & Jacques Thollot (drums, saron, gong, bells, voice). T…
La Maison Fille Du Soleil
Cross-pollinating the wants lists of art/jazz/print and architecture enthusiasts this seldom sighted 45 single is regarded as the rarest “lost” recording by American jazz trumpeter and global communal music missionary Don Cherry as he collaborates with French piano improv genius François Tusques. A missing link in the pre-formative years of improvised jazz this mythical private pressing unites two of the key exponents of both American and French free jazz – two entirely independent musical art f…
Mu Second Part
2013 Rpress. 31st volume in the BYG Actuel series; gatefold sleeve, 180 gram vinyl. "An album recorded at Studio Saravah in Paris on August 22, 1969 by Don Cherry (pocket trumpet, piano, Indian flute, bamboo flute, voice, bells, percussions) with Ed Blackwell (drums, percussions, bell)."
"His duets with Ed Blackwell, a drummer whose playing Cherry was very conversant with through a shared history in the Coleman group, were the first recordings released in the Actuel series." --Thurston Moore and…
Mu First Part
2013 repress. Exact repros of the original BYG Actuel LP series from the early 70s. "Originally recorded on August 22nd, 1969 at Studio Saravah in Paris, this album became the first one of the whole BYG/Actuel series. Don Cherry's electrifying duets with Ed Blackwell are memorable. 6 tracks. Gatefold sleeve, 180 gram HQ vinyl.
The BYG Actuel Series has remained one of the most authentic portals into the free expression of sound during the 60′s and 70′s, opening up the bridge between the b…
The New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra
Recorded live at the Donaueschingen Music Festival in Germany on October 17, 1971, this rare concert has not been available on vinyl since the seventies! This recording, while still firmly rooted in the American free jazz tradition of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler (with whom Don Cherry frequently recorded), brings in elements of traditional Indian, African, Chinese, Mayan and Balinese music. Of the three pieces found here, the first two are composed by Cherry and feature an internationa…
Mu part 1 & 2
These are the ltd papersleeve CD exact repros of the original BYG Actuel LP series from the early 70s, seem to be of a better general quality than the previous Get Back reissues -- and more readily available. "Originally recorded on August 22nd, 1969 at Studio Saravah in Paris, this album became the first one of the whole BYG/Actuel series+2nd album album recorded at Studio Saravah in Paris on August 22, 1969 by Don Cherry (pocket trumpet, piano, Indian flute, bamboo flute, voice, bells, percuss…
Human Music
"This 1969 avant-garde collaboration between trumpeter Don Cherry and electronics pioneer Jon Appleton was originally released on legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. Consisting of four compositions with the titles 'Boa,' 'Oba,' 'Abo,' and 'Bao,' Human Music finds Cherry stretching out on various flutes and African percussion instruments in addition to pocket trumpet. Original artwork. Detailed liner notes." Includes two bonus tracks, "Don" and "Jon".At the dawn of the 197…