"This 1969 avant-garde collaboration between trumpeter Don Cherry and electronics pioneer Jon Appleton was originally released on legendary jazz producer Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. Consisting of four compositions with the titles 'Boa,' 'Oba,' 'Abo,' and 'Bao,' Human Music finds Cherry stretching out on various flutes and African percussion instruments in addition to pocket trumpet. Original artwork. Detailed liner notes." Includes two bonus tracks, "Don" and "Jon".
At the dawn of the 1970s, ‘going electric’ had become commonplace for jazz musicians; ‘going electronic’ was a different matter. Many musicians plugged in, filtered and distorted their keyboards, basses and horns, reaching for an unholy, ecstatic din or the youthful muscularity of the groove, but few wholeheartedly embraced the abstract space of studio electronics or took up the challenge of how to improvise with them.
Enter Don Cherry, who, if anyone, was well-suited to the task of combining improvisation and electronics. Cherry had spent the better part of a decade fleshing out Ornette Coleman’s approach to collective composition, and he had also started to build his own vision, one in which whole musical styles and cultures merged and themselves became modes around which to improvise.This adventurous spirit led to an invitation to act as artist-in-residence at Dartmouth College. The invitation came from Jon Appleton, himself a composer and, more importantly, the builder of the college’s electronic music studio. Their collaboration over a two-week period in February 1970 gave us Human Music, originally released on producer Bob Thiele’s Flying Dutchman imprint, and now re-issued by Water." - Dusted Magazine