DON CHERRY レコード& CD

Review: Trading Places reissues a rare live recording of the legendary jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, captured in Ankara in 1969. Accompanied by Turkish musicians Irfan Sumer, Selcuk Sun and Okay Temiz, Cherry explores his original compositions and adaptations of local folk songs, as well as tunes by Ornette Coleman and Pharoah Sanders. A fascinating fusion of tradition and experimentation, this album is a treasure for jazz lovers, capturing a moment of transnational future-dreaming. Cherry laid down its original recording in the Turkish-US Embassy, after spending months learning the ways of traditional Turkish folk music - 'the mother' - with saxophonist Bernt Rosengren.

Review: Acclaimed free jazz improvisor and all round American music maestro Don Cherry has a vast discography that covers just about all points on the spectrum. Here & Now found the famed trumpeter work with plenty of epic rock guitars on a collection of high octane and dense tracks. They were recorded in December 1976 and released on Atlantic in the same year and a wealth o guest musicians continued to the record's rich sonic tapestry. It might not be his most famous work but it has lots of interesting polyrhythmic percussion work that is well worth checking out.

Review: Old & New Dreams was a jazz group active from 1976 to 1987 - a four-piece bound together by their shared history as sidemen for free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman. The line-up was Don Cherry on trumpet, Dewey Redman on tenor sax, Charlie Haden on bass and Ed Blackwell on drums, and between them they played renditions of Coleman's compositions as well as writing their own material. Having previously limited the restraints other musicians placed on them in past work, the assembled members of Old & New Dreams celebrated coming together and being able to push themselves further out, and the results on this seminal album speak for themselves. Remastered and reissued with the ever-present attention to detail of an ECM pressing, this is essential listening for anyone serious about jazz of all stripes, free or otherwise.

Review: Legendary jazz man and truly free spirited musical maestro Don Cherry joined up with Swiss pianist and composer George Gruntz and his group in Tunisia and Germany in May and September 1969 to record this. It brings together two powerhouses with North-African flavoured deep jazz results featuring piano, cornet, flute and celeste mixed up with various different reeds players as well as a selection of traditional instruments such as the bendir, ney, bagpipes, tabla and darbouka. It all adds up to a mesmerising and trance inducing ritual of jazz magic.