Search - Don Cherry :: M.U.

Don Cherry's MU sessions

Allan MacInnis | Vancouver | 10/19/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Don Cherry, after leaving Ornette Coleman's group to travel through Europe, began to radically expand the boundaries of jazz, by importing elements of the musical traditions of various cultures -- from Chinese traditional music to Turkish folk music to Native Americana. This movement arguably begins with these sessions, which seem driven by a need to strip the impulse to play music down to something ancient, primal, and common to ALL traditions. Hence the reference to the lost continent of Mu, maybe -- an ancient origin point, a place of dispersal. MU was initially released on the rare BYG/Actuel imprint, on two separate LPs - with wonderful art by Cherry's wife Moki -- and subsequently rereleased on Affinity. The albums were recorded in one session, if I recall, in 1969; Cherry is accompanied by Ed Blackwell, on drums and varied percussion. Cherry isn't quite 'round to using gamelans, Tibetan chant, and so forth at this phase -- it's still pretty jazzy, really -- but there's a definite neoprimitivism afoot here, and there's a marked change of course from anything Cherry had done previously with Coleman, or really, from what anyone in jazz was doing at this point (I mean, yeah, people were going back to African influences -- but Cherry seemed interested in the music of the whole world). In addition to the pocket trumpet, Cherry sings, does handclaps, plays piano, flute, and no doubt joins Blackwell on percussion occasionally. The session is intimate, passionate, playful, intellectually exciting, and quite joyful at times, though it's probably only for, um, "serious" jazz listeners. Alas, Cherry's work throughout the late '60s and '70s remains vastly underappreciated, even after his death in 1995 -- which is baffling to me, given how wonderful some of his stuff is. MU is a highpoint of his career -- if anyone wants to take MY word for it."