That multi-instrumentalist and world jazz pioneer Don Cherry was able to adopt such a beatific countenance for the cover shot of Hear And Now says much for the power of yoga, given the horrors that follow. The disc has now been reissued as part of Warner Jazz's Atlantic Masters series. But non-yogis should heed this warning: if you only acquire one Don Cherry album in your life, don't acquire this one.
Recorded in December 1976, Hear And Now was produced by drummer/keyboardist
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data-original-title="" title="">Narada Michael Walden, whose crimes against music—particularly at the height of the 1970s fusion era—are of a scale similar to those of pianist
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data-original-title="" title="">Bob James. The album is a truly gross example of Walden's schtick: bombastic cock-rock lead guitars, lumbering bass ostinatos, leaden drums, warbling background vocals, a faddish veneer of exotic mysticism and a sub-Wagnerian taste for dramatic shifts in dynamics. Walden himself is only heard on two tracks, but unfortunately one of them, the opening "Mahakali," features him on tympani. If Spinal Tap had been a jazz-funk band, and if it had recorded the jazz odyssey talked about in the movie, this is what it would have sounded like.
There are some great musicians on the album: Cherry, tenor saxophonist
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data-original-title="" title="">Tony Williams (heard on two) among them. Cherry solos with vigor on trumpet on most tracks, and twice on flute, but it's not enough to lift the proceedings, which are dominated by Walden's unfailingly predictable arrangements and the guitar histrionics of
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data-original-title="" title="">Carlos Santana, drags it down again. All the tunes were written by Cherry, not that you'd notice.
Why do musicians of Don Cherry's caliber make albums like Hear And Now? To make some money, certainly; to have a laugh, maybe. Cherry probably didn't make much money on this one, so perhaps the cover shot says it all.
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Chris May is a senior editor of All About Jazz. He was previously the editor of the pioneering magazine Black Music & Jazz Review, and more recently editor of the style / culture / history magazine Jocks & Nerds.
All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.
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