"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 communicated thoughts, Don Cherry is a man of creative inventiveness and it would be unnatural for him not to seek and bring about the new forms in his talent as a composer and performer the compositions as well as the titles are all in the form of the new thing, in music of the improvising world." -Ornette Coleman, from the original liner notes of Blue Note Records' Where is Brooklyn? by Don Cherry

We don't know what, precisely, Ornette is talking about here, but we're sure he's right! We do know, however, that ANW has commenced our Composer Portrait: Don Cherry season-long celebration with Dave Douglas & Brass Ecstasy's exciting performance (which included Cherry tunes The Thing, Awake Nu, and others). If you missed it, don't fret. Celebrating their 10th anniversary, Steven Bernstein's Millennial Territory Orchestra visits Philadelphia for the first time to perform Cherry's "Relativity Suite" (still unreleased on CD). The piece, commissioned by the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association  (under the leadership of Carla Bley) 40 years ago and recorded on Valentine's Day 1973, is an ambitious suite undoubtedly influenced by Cherry's work with Pakistani vocalist Pandit Faquir Pran Nath, also a major influence on Terry Riley, La Monte Young and Lee Konitz.

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