motion picture DVD - Don Cherry's "Multikulti"

Don Cherry’s Multikulti, a name shared by his group and its 1989 CD release
on A&M Records, was recorded in 1991 before a live audience at the Theaterhaus
in Stuttgart, Germany. The scaled-down ensemble heard here features Peter Apfel-
baum switching between saxophone, flute, and piano; Bo Freeman playing electric
bass; and Joshua Jones playing drum set. The leader divides his time between playing
his signature pocket trumpet, a hunter’s harp-lute from Mali called doussn’gouni,
various keyboard instruments including the melodica, piano, and synthesizer, and
providing the occasional wordless vocal. Apfelbaum composed most of the songs
for this performance (with the exception of a touching medley of Thelonious Monk
tunes played by Cherry alone at the piano), but after studying intensely with Cherry
at the Creative Music Studios in Woodstock, New York, Apfelbaum’s music, and that
of his San Francisco–based Hieroglyphics Ensemble, mirrors Cherry’s ideals very
well. Most of the grooves explored during the set hover near the reggae and 12/8
Afro-tinged end of the spectrum while the melodies are memorable to the point of
catchy, a quality that also infused many of Cherry’s earlier, more experimental, and
now often hard-to-find recordings.

David Borgo - University of California, San Diego