Don Cherry

Don Cherry as a trumpet and cornet player has perhaps been over shadowed by other masters of these instruments despite his innovative and original approch. He has also been perceived as a sideman rather than a bandleader in his own right, this may be partly due to his early work with Ornette Coleman from 1957, where he played on the sax players first seven ground-breaking free jazz albums alongside Charlie Haden and Billie Higgins, who was later replaced by Ed Blackwell.
Don Cherry has been one few jazz musicians to be influenced by and incorporate ethnic music from all over the world, more in keeping with European musicians than those from the States.

As mentioned above a large part Don Cherrys early career was spent with Ornette Coleman in which these two defined the concept and indeed coined the term 'Free Jazz', an early example of this is the Something Else!!!! album which was followed by Change of the Century then Free Jazz. Later during the early 60's Cherry worked with other free jazz musicians such as John Tchicai, Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp.
Cherry's links with Europe have always been strong, in 1964 he recorded the widely praised albums Complete Communion and Symphony for Improvisors with a band including Gato Barbieri who were based in Europe.
Towards the end of the 60's Cherry toured Africa and Asia where he became influenced by different types of ethnic music and sounds. In the early 70's he was based in Sweden for several years, from where he toured much of Europe and the middle east. He also learnt to play many other instruments such as the wooden flute, berimbau, doussn'gouni and various percussion instruments. It must be noted that Cherry was already a competent piano player in addition to the trumpet and cornet, he is probably best known for his pocket trumpet playing.

Don Cherry returned to his roots in the 70's by joining up with Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden once more in a band called Old and New Dreams, with Dewey Redman on sax they worked through Coleman's early material again in addition to performing new material. Towards the end of this decade he formed a trio, Codona with Nana Vasconcelos and Collin Walcott performing a wide range of ethnic styles and, in my opinion played some of his finest music. The 80's saw Cherry in collaboration with Abdulla Ibrahim, Ed Blackwell and Lou Reed amongst others as well as releasing three albums with Codona.

Don Cherry has been a major figure in the development of what is now called 'World Music' being involved with it before it became known as such.

Albums;

With Ornette Coleman
Somthing Else!!!! (1958)
Change of the Century (1959)
Free Jazz (1960)

With John Coltrane
The Avant Garde (1960)
Future 1 (1963)

With Albert Ayler
New York Ear And Eye Control (1964)
Complete Communion (1965)
Where Is Brooklyn? (1966)
Live at the Montmartre Vols 1 & 2 (1966)
Eternal Rhythm (1968)

With Charlie Haden
Liberation Music Orchestra (1969)
Human Music (1970)
Mu (1970)
Orient (1973)
Eternal Now (1973)
Hear And Now (1976)
Brown Rice (1976)
Live In Ankara (1978)

Codona
Codona 1, 2, & 3 (1980 - 1983)

With Ed Blackwell
El Corazon (1982)

Home Boy (1985)
A Tribute To Blackwell (1987)
Art Deco (1988)
Multikulti (1990)
Dona Nostra (1994)

Links