Unlike today, jazz (and even pop-rock music) in the 1970s was in a period of breaking down labels. Artists melded their own genre with sounds from other styles, cultures and possibly even planets, as was the case of Don Cherry. He was with the Free Jazz movement from day one, teaming with Ornette Coleman back in 1959 for the opening salvos.
Here, in 1975, we have one of Cherry’s most important releases, Brown Rice, on vinyl. It’s been out of print for 2 score years and is a psychedelic classic. Cherry actually reunites with his old mates Billy Higgins/dr and Charlie Haden/b, but, as they say, there’s no going back. . The concise opener of a title track gives hints of plugged in Miles Davis with spacy voice, hip jive and wacka wooka grooves with ethereal voices from Verna Gillis and Cherry. Cherry plays electric piano on “Degi-Degi” as well as bringing in vocal chants to accompany Ricky Cherry’s pounding and funky electric piano while Frank Lowe screeches and squawks his tenor to the ozone layer. Cherry is in a more bopping mood for “Chenrezig” with Higgins, Lowe, Cherry and Hakim Jamil on bass with dark verbal messages hovering through the incense. A Central Asian tamboura intro on ”Malkauns” leads into a deep drone before segueing into a grooving jam with Cherry’s trumpet sounding clear and rich. The spartan team of Chery with Higgins, Haden and Moki on the strings. There’s a melding of sounds from India, Africa, Arabia and outer space on this ambitious, world wide and electric (in more ways than one) album that mixes contemplation and cataclsym with and still sounds far beyond where we’ve traveled.