Don Cherry & John Tchicai - Musical Monsters

2016 release

The music of this concert is adventurous, taking the liberty of breaking all the rules of style through playing without getting totally out of hand“, writes Christian Rentsch in the liner notes. In short: This CD is a stroke of luck.

For decades, the live recording of the Musical Monsters from 30 August 1980 lay carefully packed away in the archives of the Jazzfestival Willisau. When Irène Schweizer got to hear the recordings it was immediately clear to her: This recording has to be put out. Not only because the concert documents her only collaboration with trumpet player Don Cherry, one of the great pioneers of Free Jazz, but first and foremost because the music on these tapes is so unbelievably fresh and alive, so contemporary and up-to-date as only very few recordings of European Free Jazz.

Four ‘head’ arrangements act as a kind of flexible road map between the solos and the collective improvisations: “Real Kirsten”, “Transportation of noodles” (both by John Tchicai), “Xongly” by the Danish composer Pierre Dørge and, as an encore, “Pà Tirstag” (again by John Tchicai).