DON CHERRY レコード& CD

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.

Review: Sonny Rollins' first live performance with Don Cherry, which took place at the Village Gate in Greenwich Village, NYC, in 1962, has long been talked about in hushed tones - in part because recordings of three tracks from the extended performance appeared on 1963's Our Man In Jazz LP. Now, for the first time, the entirety of that recording - with Rollins on tenor sax, Cherry on cornet, Bob Cranshaw on bass and Billy Higgins on drums -has been released. It's a beast, with over five hours of hard-bop and improv jazz stretched across six CDs. There are multiple takes and unedited versions of the tracks that appeared on Our Man In Jazz, plus tons of superb extended workouts, on-the-fly gems and energetic improvisations. In other words, it should be an essential purchase for all serious jazz fans.

Review: Way back in 1979, Japanese composer, bandleader and percussionist Masahiko Togahashi headed to Paris for a set of recording sessions with bassist Charlie Haden and trumpeter Don Cherry. Under the watchful eye of Martin Meissonnier - then Don Cherry's right-hand man - the trio recorded 'Son of Soil', a magical and spiritually enriching set that mixed elements of free-jazz improvisation with Japanese musical motifs, Togahashi's sublime percussion work, Haden's fast-fingered bass-played, and Cherry's mastery of various brass and woodwind instrumentation. The set was initially only released in Japan, so this worldwide reissue - accompanied by a booklet featuring extensive liner notes, previously unpublished photos and new interviews - is very welcome.