Don Cherry meets the Groupe de Recherches Musicales!
Recorded in 1977 at the Paris MIX festival organised by INA grm and hosted by François Bayle, this is a terrific, deeply congruent, soulful encounter.
Cherry plays pocket trumpet extensively and beautifully (also n’goni and whistles), with characteristically unguarded, elemental sublimity; Nana Vasconcelos is dazzlingly, hypnotically grooving. Electro-acoustic pioneer Jean Schwarz — a collaborator of Jean-Luc Godard — contributes elegant tape-work, synths, and treatments; his long-time associates Michel Portal and JF Jenny-Clark are highly accomplished European jazz legends. (Feted recently by Souffle Continu, the clarinettist is a mainstay of the Jef Gilson set-up, who recorded with Serge Gainsbourg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Sunny Murray; the bassist played on DC’s 1965 Blue Note classic Symphony For Improvisers… not to mention Brigitte Fontaine’s Comme à la Radio).
Remastered from the original master tapes; out here for the first time.
It’s a must.

Sublime, masterful singing — poetic, polyphonic, evocative sufferers — over a stately and atmospheric Java excursion, more sombre than mystical. Super-soulful. Ace.

We love this LP; it’s an old favourite. You can hear Teddy adjusting the influences of Hawk and Bird to meet the challenge of Rollins and Coltrane. You can’t go wrong with any of his West Coast albums from 1960-67, for Pacific, Contemporary and Prestige. Classy, bluesy, no frills West Coast jazz; cultured but tasty and with-it. This one has the warmth, purposefulness and swing of a classic Blue Note. Phineas Newborn plays a blinder, too.
Here’s the Penguin Guide: ‘One of the best mainstream albums of its day… beautifully and almost effortlessly crafted.’