Don Cherry

Cherry also co-led the Avant-Garde session which saw John Coltrane replacing Coleman in the Quartet. He also recorded and toured with Sonny Rollins, co-led the New York Contemporary Five in Manhattan with Archie Shepp, recorded and toured with Albert Ayler and with bandleader and composer George Russell. His first recording as a leader was Complete Communion for Blue Note Records in 1965. The band included Coleman's drummer Ed Blackwell as well as saxophonist Gato Barbieri, whom he had met while touring Europe with Ayler. After leaving Coleman, Don Cherry eschewed the trend towards funk/fusion and continued to play a sparse jazz often in small groups and duets (many with ex-Coleman drummer Ed Blackwell) during a long sojourn in Scandinavia and other locations. He would later appear on Coleman's 1971 LP Science Fiction, and from 1976 to 1987 would reunite with Coleman alumni Dewey Redman, Charlie Haden, and Blackwell in the band Old And New Dreams, where his "subtlety of rhythmic expansion and contraction" was noted. That band recording a total of four albums, two for ECM and two for Black Saint. During the 1980s, he also recorded again with the original Ornette Coleman Quartet on In All Languages, as well as recording El Corazon, a duet album with Ed Blackwell. In addition to bebop, Cherry incorporated influences of Middle Eastern, traditional African, and Indian music into his playing and from 1978 to 1982, he recorded three albums for ECM with "world jazz" group Codona, consisting of Cherry, percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. Other playing opportunities in his career came with Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill project or recordings with Lou Reed, Ian Dury, Rip Rig & Panic and Sun Ra. Don Cherry was only 58 when he died in Málaga, Spain in 1995 due to liver failure caused by hepatitis. His stepdaughters Neneh Cherry and Titiyo and his sons David Cherry and Eagle-Eye Cherry are also musicians.