Mit Unfall meinte ich natürlich das, was hier im Auswahlverfahren geschah, nicht die Musik auf dem Album. Und ja, für Norris ist es unerfreulich, dass die meisten ihn nur wegen dieses Auftritts kennen dürften.
Was Cherry und seine „alten“ Einflüsse angeht, einer von denen war ja Jabbo Smith. Ich hab da eine kleine Konzertkritik von 1987 gefunden, in der dessen Name im Zusammenhang mit „Art Deco“ fällt (New York Times):
Jazz: Don Cherry
By Robert Palmer
Sept. 3, 1987DON CHERRY’S musical life has been rich in variety and adventure, often played out in exotic locales. He has learned from encounters with remarkable men, including Ornette Coleman, the Indian vocalist Pandit Pran Naph, the South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim and the West African, Moroccan and American Indian musicians who taught him indigenous instruments and tribal lore. He has been a key member of several significant bands – the original Ornette Coleman Quartet, Old and New Dreams, the multicultural trio Codona. One thing Mr. Cherry hasn’t got around to yet is leading a regular, working combo of his own.
The quartet Mr. Cherry is introducing this week at the Village Vanguard is already forging a distinctive group sound. Carlos Ward, who is playing alto saxophone and contributing a number of sturdily hypnotic compositions, thinks on his horn the way Mr. Cherry does. He breaks his songlike lines the way the voice breaks, with exclamations and asides, rather than depending on the fundamentally instrumental syntax of arpeggios and scalar figures. Ed Blackwell’s drumming seems to sing, too, while keeping up an agile rhythmic commentary on the music’s direction and pulse. Cameron Brown plays bass with confident authority, nailing down the robust ostinatos that anchor much of the group’s music.
Vivid glimpses of some of the musicians who have crossed Mr. Cherry’s path and shaped his personality slipped in and out of the music’s mercurial flow on Tuesday. Soloing on Mr. Coleman’s recent composition “Mothers of the Veil,“ Mr. Cherry found himself detouring through Thelonious Monk’s “In Walked Bud,“ a theme Mr. Ward picked up and developed in the saxophone solo that followed. Mr. Cherry’s “Art Deco“ was an elegant 1930’s soft-shoe routine, summoning the spirit of Jabbo Smith and Billie Holiday.
A version of this article appears in print on Sept. 3, 1987, Section C, Page 17 of the National edition with the headline: Jazz: Don Cherry.
Und einen Klick weiter einen Mitschnitt, anscheinend aus demselben Jahr aber mit anderer Band – Jim Pepper, Kirk Lightsey, Bob Stewart, Ed Blackwell … und Jabbo Smith, der so spät in seinem Leben allerdings leider nur noch singt. Darunter ist in der Beschreibung ein weiterer NYTimes-Artikel vom Februar 1987 zu finden:
Was ich eigentlich sagen will: ich vermute eher, Cherry und Eldridge hatten am Ende gemeinsame Vorbilder.
Und noch was dazu, vom Kornettisten Graham Haynes:
Graham Haynes: I met Don in the late 80s or early 90s. The first time I met him was when he was playing at the Village Vanguard. He had a band with Jim Pepper on saxophone, Ed Blackwell on drums, maybe Mark Helias on bass, I don’t remember. I remember his son, David, was playing keyboards and [trumpeter] Jabbo Smith and Don. I think that was the first time I saw him, and I did talk to him a little bit that night.
http://archive.soundamerican.org/sa_archive/sa14/sa14-the-interviews.html
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"Don't play what the public want. You play what you want and let the public pick up on what you doin' -- even if it take them fifteen, twenty years." (Thelonious Monk) | Meine Sendungen auf Radio StoneFM: gypsy goes jazz, #164: Neuheiten aus dem Archiv, 10.6., 22:00 | Slow Drive to South Africa, #8: tba | No Problem Saloon, #30: tba