Live at Cafe Montmarte 1966 Vol. 2

We Say...

Review by Charles Farrell

During the 1960s, there were few venues that hosted more seminal jazz than Copenhagen’s Café Montmarte. With an enthusiastic European audience waiting for new sounds, many US-born innovators found it easier to book extended stays at the Montmarte than in New York clubs. Trumpeter/cornetist Don Cherry, who’d made his reputation as part of the Ornette Coleman Quartet, was one of the first Americans to assemble multi-national groups (something he’d continue to do throughout his life) during European visits. In 1966 he brought in one of his finest, consisting of Argentine tenor saxophonist Gato Barbieri, German vibes player/pianist Karl Berger, Danish bassist Bo Stief and Italian drummer Aldo Romano. It was a raucous, loose-limbed and swirling quintet that emanated great power and potency.

Because of Coleman’s preeminence, Cherry’s own compositional skills were often overlooked, but the trumpeter had a gift for writing short, pithy themes that lent themselves to extended improvisation. These themes would be used as signposts — often three or four of them in a suite-like manner — to be referenced as needed over the course of a set. Nowhere is this more evident than on the lengthy “Complete Communion.” The ensemble virtually attack the opening, and then Cherry takes off on a raw, open toned solo with Berger’s vibes spitting metallic counterpoint and Romano bashing away underneath. Throughout the album, Barbieri totally wails. His tenor playing will come as a shock to those who know him as either a pop-jazz icon or a leading composer of Nuevo Tango. It’s fascinating hearing the group’s take on Albert Ayler’s “Ghosts.” There are other surprise choices: Ornette Coleman’s “Faces and Places” instantly morphs into “Felicidad” from “Black Orpheus” and on to some original Cherry compositions. “Spring Is Here” actually borrows from the old warhorse of the same name. But the tunes are really just to set up the group interplay, which is the heart of what this music was about.