[.ca] Mu First Part, Mu Second Part

From Amazon.com:
Originally released in 1969 as separate LP's, Mu documents the album-length duos of trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Ed Blackwell, both members of the Ornette Coleman quartet. This was a radical concept at the time, but the duo's empathy and stark beauty won many converts, leading to a spate of duo concept albums in the future. Cherry's darting, dancing trumpet and Blackwell's melodic polyrhythms are perfect foils, as each man has a gift for creating rifflike patterns that congeal and coalesce. Cherry substitutes flute and piano on several cuts, adding variety and additional colors to their obvious simpatico. The flute cuts, in particular "Amejelo" and "Bamboo Night," presage Cherry's later ventures into various ethnic strains of world music. --Wally Shoup

delightful duos, Pan-African diaspora music:
This is an attractive re-packaging of an earlier Charly CD, with a suitably psychedelic cover, appropriate to the music's origins in the late 1960s when Cherry was becoming a global nomad (he wound up in Scandinavia for many years). Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell played together with Ornette Coleman before Ornette's historic first recordings. Billy Higgins played on "The Shape of Jazz to Come" (1959) but Blackwell had been there first, and appeared with his distinctive New Orleans rhythms on "This Is Our Music" (1960). Cherry and Blackwell, who sadly have both passed on, always played subordinate roles in Ornette's quartet, but on this date they play as equals. Both were interested in "world music," and Blackwell was interested in all the branches of Pan-African rhythm (polyrhythms!) and percussion. There are jazz aspects to "Mu," but as in Mingus, other elements are blended -- not only the blues in this case, but further back to folk musics of Africa. There is tremendous playfulness here, as well as respect. Cherry and Blackwell would team up again over a decade later for "El Corazon" on ECM, also fantastic and well worth checking out. And by all means, don't neglect the records by Old and New Dreams either, which brought Cherry and Blackwell together with Charlie Haden and Dewey Redman in the 1970s as Ornette went electric...

Out Of Sight!:
The idea of duo sessions between woodwind & percussion or brass & percussion was definitely in the air during the mid to late 1960s. John Coltrane, for example, had been experimenting with the duo format with drummer Rashied Ali (Interstellar Space) and before that with Elvin Jones. In fact if you like Interstellar Space, you'll groove on this. Unlike the Trane/Ali date, this particular session allows for plenty of open space amidst periods of fury; and Cherry alternates between trumpet, piano and flute throughout the album. Combined with great drumming and percussion from Ed Blackwell (who can swing and play beautiful African-inspired polyrhythms) Cherry creates sounds that have one foot in the avant-garde jazz of the late 1960s and the other foot in world music. Essential for fans of Don Cherry and others who have an interest in free jazz.

Mu music!:
Don Cherry is mostly known as a trumpeter & sideman to Ornette Coleman, here he branches out into different sound territories on a whole bunch of instruments, most notably proving himself an excellent pianist. The Mysticism of My Sound displays this perfectly, somewhat reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's Cantalooupe Island. He is more than ably supported by Ed Blackwell who in that classic Ornette quartet when alternating from Billy Higgins, he was always the louder, harder-hitting one. Here the patterns are more in a "world music" style, though before the term was coined & before it became Ikea soundtracks. The comparisons to the mighty Interstellar Space make sense on some tracks though nowhere near as earth-shatteringly ferocious. MU \oalso the title of a Sun Ra song coincidentally from 1969 & the band Beefheart's guitarist Jeff Cotton formed post- Trout Mask\c has a very distinct sound, the likes of which hardly anyone seems likely to repeat. It also was the 1st release \owell, vol 1 anyway\c on the important free jazz label BYG/Actuel. But the personal satisfaction you'll get should well outweight such trivia. Dig in.

Great disc, see ORIENT:
I had this COOL review of MU that I wrote an' I'm still bummed about it bein' lost when Charly folded. See my ORIENT review to get my take on MU and its place in Cherry's development; my theory is that basically after free jazz, Cherry was seeking foundations for an order in jazz that didn't emerge from the canonized baggage of western tradition, that grew up organically like life itself, and ended up naturally turning to tribal music, to a sort of neoprimitivism; this means making a recording that could afford to be far more lyrical, gentle, and playful than "free jazz" per se, tho' it's still ostensibly free jazz, I suppose. ORIENT, which, if th' gods are willing, will remain reissued for awhile, is the next step in this development; having found a place to begin again, Cherry begins really enthusiastically experimenting with incorporating "world" elements into his music, from Tibetan chant to African thumb pianos. MU, tho', is the beginning of that movement, and it's always exciting to hear. By the way, the trippy art is by Cherry's wife, Mocqui (I think I'm spelling that right). Try to see the European import cover for BROWN RICE some time, for a REALLY beautiful example of her work.

CD Mix-up at Factory:
Fuel 2000 Records simultaneously released this CD and the Art Ensemble of Chicago's "A Jackson in Your House/Message to Our Folks" but the manufacturing plant mixed up the two titles and switched the music. The Art Ensemble's music (which is excellent in its own right) inadvertently appears on this disc and vice versa. The defective CDs have black lettering on white background, whereas correct discs have been made with light blue background instead of white. So if you're not familiar with Cherry and/or the Art Ensemble, check your disc! Oh, by the way, this Cherry disc is excellent as well.

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