don cherry

listening to ex-ornette sideman don cherry's eternal rhythm the other night, my sweetie remarked that when cherry's andean-sounding wood flutes give way to a martial beat from french drummer jacques thollot, it sounds like conquistadors invading the americas. while i doubt that's what cherry intended, he might have appreciated that interpretation. cherry was a world traveler who incorporated the sounds he heard in his peregrinations into his music -- in particular, a lengthy and evolving piece called "togetherness." eternal rhythm features a bunch of heavy hitters from the euro jazz scene -- vibist karl berger, pianist joachim kuhn (who later recorded with ornette), trombonist albert mangelsdorff -- as well as sonny sharrock on gtr (who'd just moved, when this was recorded at a festival in germany, 1968, from herbie mann's group to pharaoh sanders', and gets about as much on-mic time here as he did on miles' tribute to jack johnson). by that time, cherry had already worked with coltrane, sonny rollins, and albert ayler, and cut three albs as leader for blue note (two with gato barbieri before herb alpert got hold of him, two with pharaoh). he went on to play with the jazz composers orchestra, ornette (again) and the o.c. alumni band old and new dreams, among others, and to see two of his kids become pop stars, before checking out in 1995. i still 'member seeing him with old and new dreams at town hall in nyc, 1979, opening for arthur blythe. a magical muso.