''Relativity Suite'' is a

free-jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians durin ...

LP by

Don Cherry Donald Stewart Cherry (born February 5, 1934) is a Canadian former ice hockey player, coach, and television commentator. Cherry played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Boston Bruins, and later coached the team for five se ...

Jazz Composer's Orchestra The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was an American jazz group, founded by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler in 1965, to perform orchestral avant-garde jazz. Its origins lay in the Jazz Composers Guild, an organization founded by Bill Dixon which grew out ...

Records which was released in 1973.

Background

Having appeared on the first two JCOA records by

Michael Mantler Michael Mantler (born August 10, 1943) is an Austrian avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer of contemporary music. Career: United States Mantler was born in Vienna, Austria. In the early 1960s, he was a student at the Academy of Music and V ...

and

Carla Bley Carla Bley (born Lovella May Borg; May 11, 1936) is an American jazz composer, pianist, organist and bandleader. An important figure in the free jazz movement of the 1960s, she is perhaps best known for her jazz opera '' Escalator over the Hill'' ...

, Cherry was commissioned to write the third one in 1970. He used many of the same musicians who contributed to the first two records and molded into a suite a string of the pieces he'd been composing and performing in the previous few years. Studying with

Pandit Pran Nath Pandit Pran Nath (Devanagari: पंडित प्राणनाथ) (3 November 1918 – 13 June 1996) was an Indian classical singer and master of the Kirana gharana singing style. Promoting traditional raga principles, Nath exerted an ...

, Cherry was increasingly using Indian karnatic singing in his recordings and concerts and he starts the album with a similarly derived chant."

Reception

Jazz critic

Scott Yanow Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author.Allmusic Biography/ref> Biography Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles an ...

wrote: "Highlights include Selene Fung's lovely work on the ching, a Chinese koto-like instrument, and

Ed Blackwell Edward Joseph Blackwell (October 10, 1929 – October 7, 1992) was an American jazz drummer born in New Orleans, Louisiana, known for his extensive, influential work with Ornette Coleman. Biography Blackwell's early career began in New Orleans ...

's exuberant

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

marching Marching refers to the organized, uniformed, steady walking forward in either rhythmic or route-step time; and, typically, it refers to overland movements on foot of military troops and units under field orders. Marching is often performed t ...

patterns on the concluding number. While not as breathtaking or cohesive as his ''

Eternal Rhythm ''Eternal Rhythm'' is a jazz album composed by Don Cherry.Don Cherry discography< ...

'', ''Relativity Suite'' almost matches that release in its first half and contains many a worthwhile joy." In a

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

review of a live performance preceding the recording session, John S. Wilson described the music as "a mixture of charming, folklike melodies with a distinctly African tinge, of strong, compelling rhythms and, as occasional counter point, excursions into the clamorous, shrieking fury characteristic of avant-garde jazz." He stated: "The work itself and Mr. Cherry's conception of its presentation are so kaleidoscopic that a single hearing is simply an introduction to the materials used. It is music that can, and should, be heard repeatedly, not only for the variations that Mr. Cherry develops from performance to performance, but also for the rich lode of lyrical beauty and rhythmic stimulation with which he has filled it." Writing for The Free Jazz Collective, Stef Gijssels noted that, with ''Relativity Suite'', "Instrumental perfection and precision were not herry'sprimary focus, but rather the creation of a sonic universe that was new, global, inclusive with the ambition to create something universal and spiritual, not imposed out of some cerebral and abstract concept, but grown organically from the already existing sounds of many cultures."

Track listing

#"Tantra" – 8:00 #"Mali Doussn'gouni" – 5:40 #"Desireless" – 1:22 #"The Queen of Tung-T'ing Lake" – 4:30 #"Trans-Love Airways" – 6:50 #"Infinite Gentleness" – 3:22 #"March of the Hobbits" – 3:38

Personnel

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, conductor,

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

conch Conch () is a common name of a number of different medium-to-large-sized sea snails. Conch shells typically have a high spire and a noticeable siphonal canal (in other words, the shell comes to a noticeable point at both ends). In North Am ...

, voice,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

Charles Brackeen Charles Brackeen (born March 13, 1940 in Eufaula, Oklahoma, United States; died November 5, 2021, Carson, California) was an American jazz saxophonist who primarily played tenor saxophone, but also played soprano saxophone. He was previously marr ...

–

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

, alto saxophone, voice *

Carlos Ward Carlos Ward (born May 1, 1940 in Ancón, Panama) is a funk and jazz alto saxophonist and flautist. He is best known as a member of the Funk and disco band BT Express as well as a jazz sideman. Biography Ward was raised in Panama City, and at a you ...

–

alto saxophone The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones were invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in the 1840s and patented in 1846. The alto saxophone is pitched in E, smaller than the B tenor ...

, voice *

Frank Lowe Frank Lowe (June 24, 1943 – September 19, 2003) was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and composer. Biography Born and brought up in Memphis, Tennessee, Lowe took up the tenor saxophone at the age of 12. As an adult he moved to San Fra ...

–

tenor sax The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

, voice *

Dewey Redman Walter Dewey Redman (May 17, 1931 – September 2, 2006) was an American saxophonist who performed free jazz as a bandleader and with Ornette Coleman and Keith Jarrett. Redman mainly played tenor saxophone, though he occasionally also played ...

– tenor sax, voice *

Sharon Freeman Ahnee Sharon Freeman is a jazz pianist, French horn player and arranger. Freeman played French horn for the jazz opera '' Escalator over the Hill'', Gil Evans's 1973 album ''Svengali'', and in 1983 she worked on a piece of jazz Christmas music. I ...

–

French horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...

* Brian Trentham –

trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...

* Jack Jeffers –

tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

* Leroy Jenkins –

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

Joan Kalisch Joan may refer to: People and fictional characters *Joan (given name), including a list of women, men and fictional characters *:Joan of Arc, a French military heroine *Joan (surname) Weather events *Tropical Storm Joan (disambiguation), multiple ...

–

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

* Nan Newton – viola *Pat Dixon –

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

* Jane Robertson – cello *

Charlie Haden Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...

–

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

–

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

–

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

Paul Motian Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 – November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties. He first came to prominence in the l ...

Moki Cherry Moki Cherry (born Monika Marianne Karlsson; 8 February 1943 – 29 August 2009) was a Swedish interdisciplinary artist and designer who worked in textiles, fashion design, woodworks, painting, collage, ceramics and set design. Her practice traver ...

– tambura (Trans-Love Airwars) * Selene Fung – ching

Production

*Producer: Don Cherry and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra *Publisher: Eternal River Music (BMI) *Engineer:

Eddie Korvin Eddie Korvin is an American recording engineer, composer and music producer. In 1969, he founded Blue Rock Studio located in downtown Manhattan. Blue Rock was opened in 1970 after 14 months of design and construction. Korvin served as chief engi ...

*Studio:

Blue Rock Studio Blue Rock Studio was an independent 16- and 24-track recording facility located in Manhattan's SoHo district. Founded by owner Eddie Korvin, it opened in 1970 and was sold in 1986. Early years After meeting John Storyk, a recent architecture g ...

, Greene Street, Manhattan, New York *Cover: Quilt designed and handmade by Moki Cherry photographed by Gregory Reeve *Back cover photography: Don and

Eagle Eye Cherry Eagle-Eye Lanoo Cherry (born 7 May 1968) is a Swedish singer and stage performer. His 1997 single "Save Tonight" achieved commercial success in Ireland, the United States and the United Kingdom, and was voted song of the year in New Zealand. Cher ...

by Jonathan Sa’ada

External links

*Article by jazz journalist Howard Mande

*Jazz Composer's Orchestra at All Music []

References

{{Authority control 1973 albums Don Cherry (trumpeter) albums Jazz Composer's Orchestra albums JCOA Records albums