For his second album,
Symphony for Improvisers,
Don Cherry expanded his
Complete Communion quartet -- tenor saxophonist
Gato Barbieri, bassist
Henry Grimes, and drummer
Ed Blackwell -- to a septet, adding vibraphonist
Karl Berger, bassist
Jean François Jenny-Clark, and tenor saxophonist
Pharoah Sanders (who frequently plays piccolo here). The lineup has a real international flavor, since
Barbieri was from Argentina,
Berger from Germany, and
Jenny-Clark from France;
Cherry had gigged regularly with all three during his 1964-1965 sojourn in Europe, and brought them to New York to record. With all the added firepower, it's remarkable that
Symphony for Improvisers has the same sense of shared space and controlled intelligence as its predecessor, even when things are at their most heated. Once again,
Cherry sets up the album as two continuous medleys that fuse four compositions apiece, which allows the group's improvisational energy and momentum to carry straight through the entire program. The "Symphony for Improvisers" suite is the most raucous part of
Cherry's Blue Note repertoire, and the "Manhattan Cry" suite pulls off the widest mood shifts
Cherry had yet attempted in that format. Even though the album is full of passionate fireworks, there's also a great deal of subtlety -- the flavors added to the ensemble by
Berger's vibes and
Sanders' piccolo, for example, or the way other instrumental voices often support and complement a solo statement. Feverish but well-channeled, this larger-group session is probably
Cherry's most gratifying for Blue Note. ~ Steve Huey