Trading Places 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: Percussionist James Mtume, also a member of the radical black nationalist US Organisation, was a known proponent of the Kawaida philosophy, which promoted collective creativity rooted in pan-African and socialist principles. In December 1969, with his uncle Albert and father Jimmy Heath involved, Mtume recorded this powerful narrative modal jazz opera, with Don Cherry, Herbie Hancock, Ed Blackwell, and Buster Williams kept in sessional tow. An intense, rhythmanalytic masterpiece, every musician is given their own time in the auditory spotlight here, helping broach a fresh, mulitplicitous sound for the late 60s. 'Kamili' and 'Maulaina' are special pieces, intoxicating the ears with the scented feel of emotional gasoline: modal and Afrocentric jazz globes collide on this dustily remastered record, bringing seismic, voggy eruptions of spirit.