Don Cherry

• Genre: Free Jazz

About

Trumpeter/cornetist Don Cherry first burst on the music scene along with the rest of the revolutionary Ornette Coleman Quartet in the late '50s. His magnetic musical mind and improvisational prowess led to performance/recording alliances throughout the '60s with such equal jazz heavyweights as Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp and Albert Ayler (and furthermore with Ornette). A late '60s duo communion with now likewise legendary drummer Ed Blackwell gave early indication of Cherry's aim toward a timeless world music fusion which would indeed reach its apex on his first major label recording as a leader in 1975, Brown Rice. Further to sporadic releases on small labels, Cherry's trumpet sound and essence rose above the fray in latter days through his work for the ECM label via the collective groups Codona (with Nana Vasconcelos and Collin Walcott) and Old And New Dreams (with Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Ed Blackwell). Addicted to both the search for the ultimate sound and the intoxicating substances which would be his undoing, Cherry succumbed to the limits of this mortal coil in 1995.

- Steven Joerg