Cherry Don – Sunrise (2xLP)

Don Cherry's Sunrise captures a March 5, 1977 concert at Pease Auditorium in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and its release matters because this was the only documented performance by Cherry, Collin Walcott and Leon Thomas together. Long circulated privately among collectors, the full set finally appears here as an official Wewantsounds edition, opening a vivid window onto Cherry's late-1970s Organic Music approach.

What makes the album so absorbing is the way Cherry keeps the music in motion without ever sounding busy for its own sake. He moves between pocket trumpet, doussn'gouni, bamboo flute, percussion and voice, while Leon Thomas brings his unmistakable vocal presence and Walcott adds the multi-instrumental range that made him such a natural partner in Cherry's cross-cultural thinking. For part of the evening, Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless and Glen Moore of Oregon join in, widening the set's already expansive blend of spiritual jazz, African traditions and Eastern-influenced improvisation.

Sunrise also sits at an especially fertile point in Cherry's catalogue. The concert came just a month after his involvement in the recording of Walcott's Grazing Dreams, and you can hear ideas here that would soon feed into CODONA. Rather than a historical footnote, this feels like a live document of Cherry's global musical vision in full flow: hypnotic, communal and deeply open-eared.

Features

• 2xLP
• Gatefold sleeve with new liner notes by Jason Weiss
• Remastered edition with Moki Cherry artwork
• Licensed by the Don Cherry Estate and producer James Quinlan