BST 84311

Don Cherry - Where Is Brooklyn?

Released - 1969

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, November 11, 1966
Don Cherry, cornet; Pharoah Sanders, tenor sax, piccolo; Henry Grimes, bass; Edward Blackwell, drums.

1783 tk.12 There Is The Bomb
1784 tk.14 Unite
1785 tk.15 The Thing
1786 tk.16 Awake Nu
1787 tk.17 Taste Maker

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Awake Nu	Don Cherry	November 11 1966
Taste Maker	Don Cherry	November 11 1966
The Thing	Don Cherry	November 11 1966
Side Two
There is the Bomb	Don Cherry	November 11 1966
Unite	Don Cherry	November 11 1966

Session Photos

Don Cherry

Pharoah Sanders

Photos: Francis Wolff

Liner Notes

The most rewarding state of today's music is its newness whatever its categories, the new thing as today's jazz composer and performers are called is just as the title, these inventors seek to express the jazz state of inventors, it is at its most high and has been for the last five years, Don Cherry has certainly had his position in this new music over a decade or more as it has been for the other players on this album, Blackwell, Pharoah, and Henry are some of the best inventors of this new music. For those who might not know the inside meaning of the term (the new thing) one of the easy ways of remembering its meaning is "a music in which one invents that outdates their own writing or playing, without using the rules of repetition." And this music has root in this form just as man has broken away from the earth gravity to seek other forms of matter so has the form of expression in all communicating thoughts, Don Cherry is a man of creative inventiveness and it would be unnatural for him not to seek and bring about the newer forms in his talent as a composer and performer the compositions as well as their titles are all in the form of the new thing, in music of the improvising world These men playing here can always be counted on for a first-class performance because love lives in their heart for the true expression of the human warmth, the many unknown musicians to the world are not unknown in the heart of musicians on this record and these kind of beings bring the unknown musician to the heart of the worlds of music lover. The future of improvised music and its many written forms shall never become outdated as in the images of styles because the live force of creating is becoming its own existence. Blessed are the musicians of tomorrow because today's musicians are building the eternal houses of being and Don Cherry, Edward Blackwell, Pharoah Sanders, and Henry Grimes do exist as their existence is in the form of music, if you question the meaning and placement of this music in your life living, then you have been baptized, if the music doesn't cause you to question its meaning and placement in your life don't blame Cherry, Blackwell, Pharoah, and Henry

— ORNETTE COLEMAN

Addendum to original liner notes:

1965 was the year that Alfred Lion, pleased with the musical results of signing young adventurous artists like Andrew Hill, Grachan Moncur, III, Larry Young, and Sam Rivers, sought out several founding fathers of "the new thing: namely Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Cecil Taylor.

Cherry had had an eventful few years since he left Ornette Coleman's quartet in playing with important artists like Sonny Rollins and George Russell, but also out the new generations of musicians, working with Archie Shepp, john Tchicai, Albert Ayler. In fact, an early version of Cherry's "Awake Nu" appears on Ayler's 1965 album Spirits Rejoice as "D.C."

Cherry made three Blue Note albums in less than a year. While Complete Communion and Symphony for Improvisers were released in a timely fashion, this album was not released until June 1969, more than two-and-a-half years after the fact. Soon after the album was recorded, Cherry went back to Europe. And for the rest of his life, he traveled the world, continually widening his musical experiences; he died in Malaga, Spain on October 19, 1995.

I think the music contained herein is best described by what Cherry wrote in Down Beat's annual, Music '64: "Jazz has reached a point where its scope is much wider. We are in a time and period when a musician can't possibly think of just one approach. We can bring music from all over the world into one room in a true form of improvisation. We can improvise from forms, not just a tune. I am working on setting up forms. "If a feeling is strong enough and complete enough, it will swing ... 'Change' has meant chord change in modern jazz. A 'change' should be more of a modulation of mood.

"If you play what you feel — which is definitely a part of what you know from a standpoint of technique — it causes the music to be a much purer form of improvisation. Feelings are first."

— MICHAEL CUSCUNA, 2005