Blue Lake

Recorded live in Paris, France on April 22, 1971 with Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz and South African expat Johnny Dyani on-board, Don Cherry’s Blue Lake captures the open-minded and open-eared spirit of that era, the trio letting the music unfurl at a gloriously unhurried pace. Borrowing a Native American flute from the Taos Pueblo tribe, Cherry renders the title track in a calm manner that suggests the smooth surface of that sacred body of water. Introducing a suite of tunes from Dollar Brand (later going by Abdullah Ibrahim), Cherry deems him “one of the important spirits of our time,” moving between piano bench and his horn as the group moves from free jazz outbursts to celebrations of Brand’s gemlike melodies that stretch to the half-hour mark.