Saturday, October 18, 2008

Don Cherry and friends - Treasures of the Spirit (live in Bombay)


(video link)

All I could find on this is that it was recorded in Bombay, it features Cherry, Trilok Gurtu, Shankar and others, and that there is an Alice Coltrane in Bombay video that appears to be clipped from the same source.

Don Cherry cut his teeth on be-bop, blew up with Free Jazz and Ornette Coleman and played with numerous jazz luminaries, including John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Sun Ra. In the 1970s he resisted the mass exodus toward funk and fusion and incorporated Middle Eastern, African and Asian elements into his minimal, almost ambient, stylings-- years before it became fashionable. He traveled the world finding new sounds, musics and musicians, collected a wide variety of instruments (all of which he would master), and continued to explore and create until his untimely death in 1995, at the age of 58.

He was one of the rare improv musicians with a flowing and melodic sound. He made it look easy in a way that ran counter to the tortured and frenetic stance that often seems to characterize the genre. As one of the pioneers of free and improvisational jazz and arguably being the godfather of World music, Don Cherry is a somewhat overlooked treasure.

You'll notice his signature Pocket trumpet.

4 comments:

The Nag said...

I almost didn't take a look at this because I thought it was about the other Don Cherry, the one who makes me cringe. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Stewart_Cherry )

John M. said...

I noticed this bothersome character while he was messing up my Google search.

crow said...

Great song. Seems like he used to be involved in some of the massive Carla Bley projects back in the days before now.

John M. said...

Hmm. Not familiar with that. More stuff to look into.