Don Cherry: Symphony for Improvisers [ELEMENTAL]

Why you'll love it

This Elemental Music pressing brings back the album Ekkehard Jost counted among the most important LPs Don Cherry ever made. AllMusic called it probably Cherry's most gratifying session for Blue Note.

This edition

• Stereo mix

About the album

Don Cherry spent much of his career proving that free jazz could be a conversation as much as a blowout. Recorded in 1966, Symphony for Improvisers expands the group from his previous album, Complete Communion, into a septet, and runs the music as long, linked suites in which themes appear, dissolve and come back changed. The front cover photo was taken at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

Gato Barbieri, Henry Grimes and Ed Blackwell return from that earlier date, joined by Karl Berger on vibes, Jean-François Jenny-Clark on a second bass and Pharoah Sanders, who plays tenor and, rather wonderfully, piccolo. The title suite runs into "Nu Creative Love," while "Manhattan Cry" and "Lunatic" blaze before "Sparkle Plenty" lets the light back in. Grimes and Jenny-Clark's two basses give the music a deep, rolling floor, and Blackwell's drumming keeps everything moving.

All About Jazz called it "a lesson in controlled chaos that remains eminently musical." Seven players improvising at once and nobody treading on anyone's toes; we've seen worse coordination in our own stockroom.

Also at Kops: more Don Cherry on vinyl · browse Modern Jazz

Tracklist

Listen

On Elemental Music (cat# 700235), a reissue of the 1967 album.