Eternal Rhythm : The Don Cherry Tapes & Travelations is a collection of priceless cassette taped interviews woven together by writer Graeme Ewens – a confidant, travel companion and friend of the late great trumpeter and visionary. It’s a project that began back in 1979 and it gives us an unfiltered insight into the evolution and the working life of a musician who is globally recognised as one of the most unique and innovative voices to have emerged from the Sixties free jazz movement.

While Don Cherry’s rep and status as a jazz musician might just be set in stone he was more than that. He was nomadic, free spirited, natural mystic whose openness and command of a universal musical language allowed him to travel and break bread with like-minded souls wherever he touched down. I have a vivid memory of a concert, at the Old Vic in South London, with Codona – the incredible trio that featured Don Cherry, Brazilian master percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and the brilliant Colin Walcott who had studied sitar under Ravi Shankar and tabla under All Rakha. The ECM recordings of Codona were fresh and spiritually charged and ensured that there was a serious sense of anticipation in the theatre. There was rumour that Don had not yet arrived. He was reputedly on the “Magic Bus” that travelled regularly between London and Amsterdam. Colin Walcott and Nana took to the stage and commenced playing. It was while we were immersed in the conversation between these two master musicians that Don stealthily arrived onstage, sat down cross legged and proceeded to unload his duffel bag which contained his pocket trumpet, his flutes and his beloved Doussn’gouni. As he hit that first note it was as if he’d been there from the very beginning leaving all of us with an indelible imprint of the man and the moment.

Don Cherry’s roots through his grandmother were in the native Choctaw people while his father was a free black man born of formerly formerly enslaved African people. His life began in Tulsa , Oklahoma but in 1940 the four year old moved California. It is in Los Angeles that the story truly begins. I love this part of the book. Don’s own words transport us into another time. Hard times for sure but in post WW2 LA music is every where. I would love to have seen footage of Don and his sister Lindy Hopping or doing the Texas Hop or the Shake It’s also great that Don is so specific about the tunes of the day. It set this reader off on a mission listening to Jimmy Rushing, Lester Young. Johnny Otis, the Coasters amongst others. Central Avenue in Watts was the epicentre of the LA jazz scene. His father was head barman at the Plantation Club and from experience, he was reluctant for his son to follow the way of jazz. Dope and jazz, in his mind, were synonymous.

Don’s first experience of racism was at school where the role of first trumpet was always given to a white kid. But once his mother bought him his own trumpet he was gone, there was no going back. It was the radio shows that satiated his musical appetite – Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker. The Shrine Auditorium was where he eventually got to hear, live and direct, giants like Pres, Bird, Illinois Jacquet and Johnny Hodges. Musically, it was all going on… R&B, vocal groups, devotional music / gospel and jazz. As high school kids they they were busy playing the “dozens” – which is the roots of rap.

Watts in the Fifties had its own thing going on in he same way that Compton had its own thing compared to the Bronx in the late Eighties. In Don’s own words we follow him as he meets alto toting genius Ornette Coleman and gets immersed in the radical concept of Harmolodics. He reflects on feel within the music and players who could and couldn’t read music. I was amazed to read that James Clay didn’t read, especially when I hear him playing alongside David ‘Fathead Newman or much later playing flute on ‘Pavanne’. Don playing in Ornette Coleman’s famous Free Jazz quartet, ca. 1959

As one would expect his arrival in NYC was a trail by fire. There are encounters with Miles and being firmly in Ornette’s orbit ensure he was inevitably drawn into musical controversy. That said, it was radical time and the gates had been kicked open and the recording sessionss followed. Once he secured a passport Don’s ‘travelations” began. There were tours with Sonny Rollins and the spiritually possessed Albert Ayler… and once they were done he opted to stay in Paris. From there it was a hop, skip and a jump to Turkey and North Africa… Tangiers where Randy Weston was resident, as were Beat generation writers like Bryon Gysin and William Burroughs. There were musical dialogues with Turkish drummer Okay Temiz, the Master Musicians of Joujouka, the Gnawa of Morocco, South African master musicians: Dollar Brand / Abdullah Ibrahim and bassist Johnnny Dyani and Camerounian supestar Manu Dibango. The way was open and without consciously knowingly it he pioneered what was to become known as “world music”.

PB /

* Graeme Ewens’ Eternal Rhythm: The Don Cherry Tapes and Travelations is a slim 172 page volume packed with deep content and is available from bukupress@gmail.com – (UK p&p FREE)