Don Cherry - Don Cherry (1977 Japanese Horizon/A&M Gatefold LP)

Vinyl: EX
Sleeve: EX
Obi: EX

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Don Cherry - Don Cherry | Vinyl LP - 1977 Japanese Horizon/A&M Gatefold (GP 3516, King Record Co. Ltd.)

Don Cherry had spent fifteen years moving across continents and musical traditions before he recorded this album. From Oklahoma, raised in Los Angeles, he had played alongside Ornette Coleman from the late 1950s before developing a solo practice that drew as directly on African, Indian and Central Asian music as it did on jazz. By 1975, when the album was recorded, Cherry was spending large parts of the year in Scandinavia, working with musicians from different traditions on a kind of world music before that term had any currency.

The personnel reflects that history. Charlie Haden played with Cherry going back to the first Ornette Coleman Quartet. Billy Higgins had been there too. Frank Lowe came from the New York free jazz scene. Moki Cherry, Don's wife, contributed vocals. The two locations used for recording were different in character: the Basement Recording Studios in New York for three tracks, and a converted farm studio in Woodstock for "Chenrezig."

"Malkauns," at fourteen minutes the longest piece on the record, is built on a Hindustani raga of the same name. Cherry and Bengt Berger co-wrote it; Berger, a Swedish percussionist who had worked extensively with Cherry, does not appear to have played on the session. "Chenrezig," twelve minutes in Woodstock, uses the ensemble's full range more openly than the New York tracks. "Degi-Degi" carries a connection to West Africa that runs through much of Cherry's work throughout the 1970s.

This is the 1977 Japanese Horizon/A&M pressing (GP 3516), manufactured and distributed by King Record Co. Ltd.