Don CherryOrganic Music Society (Caprice)
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Cherry moved to Sweden in 1964 (he’d later marry Swedish-born painter Monika “Moki” Karlsson), and after living there for a few years he all but vanished from the jazz scene. Organic Music Society captures some of what he was up to. Of the album’s 13 tracks, cut in 1971 and ’72, only two were recorded in a studio, and Cherry plays trumpet sparingly. Its hypnotic melange of improvised grooves, chanting, and sparse solos combines influences from India, Brazil, and Africa, but instead of attempting strict fidelity to those traditions, the musicians take a more intuitive approach. There’s a version of “Terry’s Tune” by minimalist composer Terry Riley and a soulful take on the Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas classic “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” but the album’s heart are these extended, free-flowing, interactive jams—which out-psychedelic most recent hippie experiments, whether by the roster of Finland’s Fonal Records or just about anybody from Brattleboro, Vermont.
Various artistsDabke: Sounds of the Syrian Houran (Sham Palace)
I fell for the crystal-clear voice of Swedish singer Anna Ternheim four years ago, when I heard Halfway to Fivepoints—a compilation drawn from her first two albums that hoped to introduce her to the American market. But too few of its songs were worthy of that voice—the arrangements too often lacked muscle and bite, or drifted directionlessly with a generic post-Lilith Fair “ethereal” feel. Fortunately Ternheim teamed up with Bjorn Yttling (of Peter Bjorn and John) for 2009’s Leaving on a Mayday, and he brought enough definition to the music that her gorgeous voice could properly assert itself.
