Photo: David Raccuglia
Doors open 19:00
Event start 20:00
The first of a two-night programme, curated by New York’s Blank Forms, in celebration of the life, art, and collaborative spirit of free jazz legend Don Cherry and visual artist-designer Moki Cherry. Don Cherry (1936–95) was a pioneering free jazz trumpeter who began his career with Ornette Coleman and eventually resettled in Sweden, where he met his wife, Swedish artist Moki (1943–2009). Cherry frequently performed in Norway and collaborated with local jazz luminaries such as Jan Garbarek, Arild Andersen and Karin Krog. With a collective of musicians and artists, they took their colourful spirit of spontaneous performance around Scandinavia during the 1970s and 80s.
Angel Bat Dawid is a multi-instrumentalist composer, singer, and educator, and a leading contemporary practitioner of Great Black Music, exemplified by her performances with her group Tha Brothahood. In her electrifying performances and recordings, Dawid croons, shouts, chants, screams, and cries. Over the last half-decade, Bat Dawid has become a cornerstone of Chicago’s improvised music community, and an outspoken voice for racial equity and the musical history of Blackness. Though she’s most often associated with ‘spiritual jazz’, Bat Dawid’s writing and recordings feature numerous strands of Black American Music and the many sound traditions of the African diaspora. Her many collaborators have included the Sun Ra Arkestra, German post-rock group the Notwist, and British jazz group Sons of Kemet.
Tonight features the premiere of a newly commissioned duo from Mexican improviser/pianist Ana Ruiz, and Swedish visual artist, archivist and musician Naima Karlsson. Don Cherry was grandfather to Karlsson and mentor to Ruiz. In her 1970s Atrás del Cosmos free jazz collective, under Don’s guidance Ruiz absorbed Mexican folk music and other global forms. In the process, they helped pass on these strategies to a generation of Latin American musicians and artists. Karlsson also applies Don and Moki’s Organic Music philosophies in the music she makes with the electroacoustic improvisation group Exotic Sin. The two connected in 2021.
