Don Cherry

Trumpeter Don Cherry first popped into the public eye as a member of Ornette Coleman's game-changing band in the late '50s, but he went on to become a driving, ubiquitous force in avant jazz. He was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but grew up in Los Angeles, and was playing jazz by the time he was in his teens. He was taken under the wing of trumpet legend Clifford Brown at an early age, and worked with Art Farmer and others. By 1958, Cherry was playing with Ornette Coleman, and would appear on all of the avant jazz pioneer's classic early albums through 1962, including the 1960 milestone Free Jazz, which helped put "outside" music on the map and marked the trail for most of the free jazz movement to follow. During this period, Cherry also worked with jazz innovators like Paul Bley, Archie Shepp, and Albert Ayler. In 1961 he released his first solo album, appropriately titled The Avant-Garde, featuring John Coltrane on sax. Bassist Henry Grimes and Ed Blackwell were the rhythm section for much of his '60s solo discography, along with saxophonists Gato Barbieri and Pharoah Sanders. Over the course of Cherry's career, his interest in Eastern and African music became an increasingly prominent influence in his playing, especially in the '70s. In 1973 Cherry was involved with creating the soundtrack for Alejandro Jodorowsky's renowned cult film The Holy Mountain. In '76 he began working with former Coleman bandmates Blackwell, Charlie Haden, and Dewey Redman in the supergroup Old and New Dreams, with which he would make four albums over the course of the next decade. In the '80s Cherry played with Jim Pepper, Sun Ra, Charlie Rouse, Frank Lowe, and others, as well as returning to the Coleman fold for 1987's In All Languages. He continued working up until his death from liver cancer on October 19, 1995 in Malaga, Spain.