Eternal Rhythm

Don Cherry was, of course, famous for his groundbreaking work with Ornette Coleman in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Then Cherry decamped to Europe, where he started a family and received more support for his radical approach to music. Recorded in 1968 and released a year later, this album is generally regarded as one of Cherry’s finest to come out under his own name. As with the original LP, the album here is broken into two long freeform pieces. The music is an optimistic stab at unifying jazz and other music genres (from avant-garde and fusion jazz to gamelan and African music), using black and white players from both Europe and the U.S. The great Sonny Sharrock is a name that jumps out of the credits, and his textured shards of electric guitar play a big part on this. Known for his pocket trumpet, Cherry plays a variety of instruments, with often-spectacular results on flute. *Eternal Rhythm* is now available for the first time digitally with a fresh remastering job that captures all the glory of the well-recorded original live album.

More importantly, Eternal Rhythm exists as an utterly spectacular, movingly beautiful musical performance, one of the rare occasions where the listener has a visceral sense of borders falling and vast expanses of territory being revealed for the first time.