Brotherhood Suite

AMG Review of Brotherhood Suite

Michael G. Nastos
All Music Guide

Cherry often frequented Swedish haunts, and this compilation gathers performances from a number of Stockholm club dates he did over a period of several years with saxophonist Bernt Rosengren and his band. One can really hear the root of free jazz on this well-recorded collection. Cherry plays pocket trumpet, wood flutes, and piano, while Rosengren and Tommy Koverhult play tenor sax, Torbjorn Hultcrantz handles bass, and Leif Wennerstrom bangs the skins. There are two sessions from 1968. Recorded at the A.B.F. House, "A.B.F." is the epitome of bop-inflected, free-associated, collectively improvised music. It features Maffy Falay on second trumpet, in one of his few recorded performances. Performed at the Sergel Theatre, the title cut spans some 36 minutes and is broken up into two segments. The actual suite begins with stop-start antics, leading to diffuse, low-key free improv featuring Cherry's probing piano and a repetitive, minimalist motif. This is followed by a subtle piano-bass-drums swing, with Rosengren's piquant flute evoking real beauty, and the co-leaders' tenor and trumpet digging into rambling, Ornette Coleman-like unison lines. After Cherry intros the band, they go into Abdullah Ibrahim's hip melody "Bra Joe," with Cherry on wood flute and Rosengren's flute blowing free and unshackled. "Brotherhood Suite II," recorded at the Sergel in 1969, has many melodic fragments, glued together in what liner note writer Harvey Cropper calls a "joyous tumult." A modal section cements the piece, with wood flute, bass, and piano settling into a "Creator Has a Master Plan"-like meditation. A solid melodic coda concludes the suite. "In a Dome," a recording from the Stockholm Modern Museum's Geodetic Dome, finds Cherry alone and peaceful with musing trumpets, gong accents, and vocal cries. Thelonious Monk's "Pannonica" and "Skippy" are welded together in a 1974 performance from a rock club. It would be safe to assume there's more material from these sessions lying about, and if these are the best of the lot, a second volume would be welcome. This is an important document of Cherry's post-Coleman work, and well worth the search.