Saturday, November 24, 2007

Eggsperimental:


Don Cherry ~ Orient...a live recording of two separate Don Cherry performances in Paris, 1971. One of which features madman Han Bennink on drums and percussion. This album has so many different moods and feelings that it's kind of hard to write about it properly. Things start off quite nice with a spooky rolling piano vamp and then suddenly...BAM! you're thrust into a white hot free jazz blowout with pounding cymbals, pots and pans, trumpet blaring and all kind of freakoutedness. The piece shifts suddenly again with chanted mantras and vocal acrobatics and some kinds of unusual vocal drone effect. This is one of the tracks where the vocals are utilized quite interestingly...other times on this disc ("Togetherness" for example) are less impressive as Cherry tries to get the audience to join along with his flat singing. It only seems to make it worse when he peppers his coaxing with corny lines ("God made all children to love to sing").

Never a dull moment in Paris '71, I suppose.

Booyah!

3 comments:

b. brown said...

Jay-
I just strolled through some old posts' comments and noticed you said you were in the Ladderback. Hehe, I think you guys were on at least one comp with my old, old, cringeworthy band, Clopec Tilting Six. I think we were on some French comp together around, say, 1997or8.

Anyway, just a memory and a roundabout way of saying what-up.

ben

b. brown said...

I'd email you instead of commenting if I knew where to send, but--
--hehe, that's the one. On The Road Of Innocence. Haha, YOU shouldn't be embarassed; y'alls songs are actually good. OUR songs: embarassing. So half-hearted, but good memories all the same. Real fun period of time. But, hehe, I found my copy of that comp...such a low-budget relic! Oh, those liner notes!

IntangibleArts said...

The "Togetherness" suite Cherry recorded with Gato Barbieri was much mo'betta, in my opinion. But being a Don Cherry completist, I was still happy to see this one reissued a while back...