Don Cherry Organic Music Society LP rare avant modal spiritual free jazz Ornette

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Don Cherry  - Organic Music Society - hard to find double LP vinyl issue of this legendary early spiritual free jazz recording.  limited import edition on Caprice Records in gatefold sleeve with booklet.  collectible.  new copy, opened to photograph.  own this artifact!

"Early 70s greatness from Don Cherry – a double album's worth of profoundly spiritual soundscapes paired with lots of weird effects – and a very laidback groove overall! Tracks are written by Cherry, Terry Riley, Pharoah Sanders, and Nana Vasconcelos – and include performances by Don on trumpet, voice, and harmonium. Lots of cool percussion elements by the group, with some tabla and other Indian instrumentation. Titles include "Elixir", "Relativity Suite (Parts 1 & 2)", "Terry's Tune", "Hope", "The Creator Has a Master Plan", and "Resa"." - dusty groove, from where this was purchased at full price but is now sold out.

"Highly recommended to fans of multi-cultural music -  This is the first official digital release of a storied double LP that often roams as far away from jazz as this pivotal figure in the ’60s avant-garde dared on record. Having moved to Europe in the mid ’60s and traveled around the world, Cherry began incorporating world music into his style, but at first, he was the only player on his albums to do so. After settling in Sweden, he and his wife, Moki (their daughter is Neneh Cherry) created a musical commune where Cherry taught his iconoclastic approach and made these 1971-72 recordings with a variety of musicians, little known aside from Brazil’s versatile Nana Vasconcelos and talented Turkish drummer Okay Temiz. Cherry plays pocket trumpet, percussion, harmonium, flute, conch, piano and xun (Chinese clay vessel flute), and often sings. There are just a few minutes of jazz on the first half of the album. “North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn” opens it hauntingly with 12-plus minutes of a slow, wordless vocal embroidered with percussion and a light drone, signaling that this won’t be like Cherry’s American recordings. On “Relativity Suite, parts 1 & 2,” he sings and speaks the OMS’s philosophy over quietly thrumming patterns. Things get jazzier on the second half, including versions of Pharoah Sanders’s “The Creator Has a Master Plan” and Abdullah Ibrahim’s “Bra Joe from Kilimanjaro.” Best is the beautiful modal song “Hope,” one of Cherry’s most memorable melodies, which reappears a few tracks later on “Utopia & Visions.” Highly recommended to fans of multi-cultural music."

"Don Cherry was one of the more notable jazz trumpeters, often appearing as a collaborator or sideman to jazz greats like Ornette Coleman and John Coltrane in the late 1950's and 1960's. On this album as bandleader, Cherry guides the music into world music sounds on the first LP while working on the more avant-garde side of acoustic jazz on the second. You'll hear echoes of Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders, and Albert Ayler among others on this album, but Cherry is still able to bring together a singular and fascinating vision of his own.

The opening track claims to be a northern Brazilian ceremonial hymn, but there are plenty of other world music hints here as well such as Indian drones and Tibetan percussion. The track is a slowly building chant which is supported by a growing percussion section and the 'ceremonial' claim of the title certainly comes across as accurate. "Elixir" gives us a full blast of tribal percussion framed by a flute solo and Indian-inspired violin (although the violin playing does comes across as a little scratchy). "Relativity" is a two part suite which unfortunately repeats the basic bass line of "Elixir," but does continue with awesome percussion and adds in some chanting that finds space between the contemporaneous chants of Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra, and a bit of speaking in tongues.

You really don't hear a whole lot of Cherry's trumpet on the first LP, but the more jazz-oriented second disc features more of his playing (and I'm guessing that's him on the flute as well). For most of this disc, the band drifts in and out of several tunes, coming across as a group of far-out jazz cats having a 3am jam in an opium den. Although not quite free jazz, this music is very improvisational sounding, but in a very gentle and drifting way as opposed to the harsh, confrontational sound that 60's and 70's avant-garde jazz can often dish out. The closing track, "Resa," is separated from this motif. It sounds like a live recording (although a perfectly listenable one), and edges a touch in spots towards Albert Ayler's free jazz swoon.

This is a fine late night record for those of you interested in the trippier side of jazz. There are some wonderful sonic colors to discover on this LP, and the cover art definitely puts a nice bow on this package. "

"It’s not entirely clear when trumpeter/multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry’s (1936-1995) organic-music cocktail of songs and traditions became a basis for an improvising language, but one can imagine that the thirst for knowledge went at least as far back as his Watts, Los Angeles bebop roots. By 1971 and 1972, when he convened the Organic Music Society sessions in Copenhagen, Bollnäs and Stockholm, Cherry had lived mainly in Europe for several years, in cities like Paris and Rome as well as a former schoolhouse in rural Sweden. His roots had grown broader and deeper through working with South African pianist Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim) and bassist Johnny Mbizo Dyani, Turkish drummer Okay Temiz and trumpeter Maffy Falay, and musicians from throughout Europe and the Americas. Added to this was the unique all-in scene available in Scandinavia, which allowed collaborations with composers, psychedelic musicians, jazzmen, visual artists, and filmmakers.

Released on the Swedish imprint Caprice, Organic Music Society joined Cherry with, among others, Falay, Temiz, percussionists Bengt Berger, Christer Bothén and Nana Vasconcelos, reedman Tommy Koverhult, a youth orchestra, and his wife Mocqui (whose tapestry design also graces the cover) on a patchwork of compositions and improvisations. In addition to the trumpeter’s tunes, there are also covers of Brand, Terry Riley, and Pharoah Sanders across 80 minutes of music. Though Organic Music Society has been one of the most lauded titles in the Caprice catalog, it is only now with the recordings’ fortieth anniversary that they’re seeing a renaissance on disc.

Opening with “North Brazilian Ceremonial Hymn,” it’s pretty clear that this set is distant from the free jazz milieu to which Cherry’s name is often attached. Girded by tanpura, berimbau, and bells (itself a fairly odd instrumental combination), the twelve-person chorus elicits a solemn, dirge-like processional in a field of accents. It’s unsettling but strangely peaceful music once one gives oneself over, washing away the particularities of tradition for another sort of ritual. The next four tracks are from the Cherry-Bothén-Berger session, mixing meditative fragments with chanting exhortations and churning modal repetition, though the trio tends to cycle through shifts rather abruptly on just the right side of ragtag. From a conversation this writer had with German vibraphonist Karl Berger (who worked frequently with Cherry), it became clear that the musicians had to recognize Cherry’s cues and follow him wherever his pied-piper intuition took the music, even as it crossed perceived sonic boundaries. On “Relativity Suite” he states that “this is the way of the organic society – to flow with time,” while incorporating tabla rhythms and Gnawa strings into a surging, ring-like ensemble vibration. It’s a rather different iteration of concepts that Cherry used with the Jazz Composers Orchestra for the 1973 JCOA LP of the same name.

The 1971 recordings from Stockholm’s Modernamuseet include nearly 30 minutes of music featuring Cherry’s voice, piano, and pocket trumpet with an ensemble of brass, flutes, bass, and percussion, balanced between a distant din and incisive clarity. Moving from minimalist arpeggios to the soaring “Desireless” (here titled “Hope”) and its piercing carpet, the ensemble sounds considerably larger than a sextet, able to engender hazily blissful visions and raw energy with equal measure. Cherry’s pianism is gorgeous and rhapsodic, a weighty arranger’s piano redolent of township barrelhouse and Monkish poise. Though hard to find, a similar vibe permeates the Stockholm free jazz orchestra Movement Incorporated (ostensibly led by Cherry) as well as reedman Gunnar Lindquist’s G.L. Unit (Odeon, 1970). A snatch of Brubeck precedes the group’s journey into “The Creator has a Master Plan,” which takes shape as several different song fragments before the familiar theme emerges. While Organic Music Society might seem at first like a disjointed (albeit spirited) smattering of improvisation and ethnographic reference, the music here is really something all its own, not only a cornerstone of Cherry’s unending journey, but also a bridging of world vanguards."

Credits?

• Bass – Tage Siven
• Berimbau, Percussion – Nana Vasconcelos*
• Cover, Painting – Moki*
• Drums – Okay Temiz
• Drums, Percussion – Bengt Berger
• Edited By, Mastered By – Göran Freese
• Flute – Tommy Goldman, Tommy Koverhult
• Guitar [Doussn'gouni] – Chris Bothen*
• Liner Notes – Jan Bruér
• Liner Notes [English Translation] – Keith Knox
• Liner Notes [German Translation] – Juliane Backman
• Percussion, Trumpet – H'suan
• Producer – Jan Bruér, Keith Knox, Rita Knox
• Recorded By – Göran Freese, Jan Bruér, Rita Knox
• Sarangi – Hans Isgren
• Tambura, Vocals – Helen Eggert, Moki Cherry
• Trumpet [Muted] – Maffy Falay*
• Trumpet, Piano, Harmonium, Vocals – Don Cherry
• Written-By – D. Cherry* (tracks: A2a, B1, B2, C2, C4, D1, D3), Hans Isgren (tracks: A2b), N. Vasconcelos* (tracks: A1)

Notes:

Documentary recordings made 1971-1972

1
North Brazilian Ceremonial Hym 12:30
2
Elixir 6:00
3
Manusha Raga Kamboji 2:15
4
Relativity Suite Part One 6:45
5
Relativity Part Two 11:55
6
Terry's Tune Written-By – T. Riley* 2:00
7
Hope 10:00
8
The Creator Has A Master Plan Written-By – L. Thomas*, P. Sanders* 6:35
9
Sidharta 1:55
10
Utopia & Visions 6:30
11
Bra Joe From Kilimanjaro Written-By – D. Brand* 2:00
12
Terry's Tune Written-By – T. Riley* 5:40
13
Resa 5:40


take note fans of Ornette Coleman, Wadada Leo Smith, Johnny Dyani, John Coltrane, Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, Sam Rivers, Hamid Drake, Sunny Murray, Gil Scott Heron, Charles Earland, McCoy Tyner, Anthony Braxton, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson, Joseph Jarman, Miles Davis, Bobby Hutcherson, Gary Bartz, Chico Freeman, Clifford Jordan, Nathan Davis, Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Billy Higgins, Billy Harper, Pharoah Sanders, Eddie Henderson, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Harold Land, Black Jazz, Strata East, soulful afro jazz, dusty groove, african soul jazz grooves etc.


CONDITION:  new open copy - with booklet


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