Cosmic Ear is a new Swedish supergroup that follows the traces of legendary trumpeter-multi-instrumentalist Don Cherry (1936-1995), who in the late 1960s settled inSweden with his wife, Swedish visual and textile artist Moki Cherry, and collaborated and recorded with many local musicians, among them clarinetist-multi-instrumentalist Christer Bothén, now 85 years old. Bothén played in Cherry’s albums Organic Music Society (Caprice, 1973) and Eternal Now (Sonet, 1984), and in Bengt Berger’s Bitter Funeral Beer (ECM, 1983).
Bothén leads this quintet and plays the West African string instrument, donso n’goni, bass clarinet, contra bass clarinet, and piano; Mats Gustafsson on tenor sax, flute, slide flute, Ab clarinet, live electronics, organ, and harmonica; Goran Kajfeš on trumpet, pocket trumpet, synth, electronics, percussion; Argentina-born Juan Romero on congas, berimbau, and percussion; and Kansan Torbjörn Zetterberg on bass, donso n’goni. All five musicians played in Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra.
Cosmic Ear does not offer a nostalgic trip. It owes much to Cherry’s spiritual free jazz meets world music legacy, especially with the presence of Bothén and his deep kinship with Cherry and Gustafsson's history with The Thing, titled after one of Cherry’s iconic pieces (The Thing covered other pieces of Cherry, and collaborated with Cherry’s daughter, Neneh Cherry, The Cherry Thing (Smalltown Superjazz, 2012)). But the other musicians also searched for their own spiritual musical ways. Kajfeš’ Magic Spirit Quartet explored West African music with Moroccan oud and guimbri player Majid Bekkas, and his Subtropic Arkestra explored Turkish and Ethiopian Music, and also covered Bothén’s composition. Zetterberg’s practice of Zen Buddhism informs his music. This quintet suggests a deep, seductive and uplifting, meditative journey that flirts and updates the legacies of Cherry, Alice Coltrane, and Pharoah Sanders, but takes the music into a fresh territory of its own.
“TRACES OF Brown Rice”, after Cherry’s jazz piece, is now dressed with a hypnotic global groove, thanks to Romero’s Brazilian barimbau, but also with Kajfeš vintage synth and Gustafsson’s flute. “Love Train” is an original, emotional ballad that best captures Cherry’s timeless music and influence. “Do It (Again), for vocalist Sofia Jernberg (who was born in Ethiopia and played in Gustafsson’s Fire! Orchestra, and The End quintet), is a mysterious, sparse song, led beautifully by Zetterberg’s double bass Kajfeš’ reserved trumpet playing. The album ends with “TRACES of Codona and Mali) (available only in the digital and disc versions of the album), after Cherry’s trio with the late Colin Walcott and Naná Vasconcelos. It is an inspiring, poetic conclusion for this engaging and most beautiful cosmic, musical journey, that, hopefully, has just begun (or renewed).
John Corbett summarized it in his poetic liner notes: “The globe is a glove, a hand warmer that radiates with extraterrestrial power, returning the fingers to their place at the center of the galaxy; the Cherry path is a balm that restores essential moisture to the lips that blow life back into the megacosm. Let us all praise warm fingers and moist mouths”.
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