Black Creative Music at Dartmouth

The inimitable Don Cherry arrived for the winter and spring terms of 1970, bringing collaborators like South African bassist Johnny Dyani and Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz with him to campus. Cherry would go on to record Blue Lake with Dyani and Temiz, featuring a wooden flute that Cherry “borrowed” from the Hood Museum. Cherry’s open-minded and idiosyncratic approach to improvisation was enthusiastically embraced by students whom he featured in concerts around Dartmouth’s campus and even in shows he organized in Boston. While at Dartmouth, Cherry collaborated with Jon Appleton, and between 1969-70, the two of them produced Human Music.

Listen to a WDCR (Dartmouth College Radio: Hanover, NH) interview with Don Cherry from February 5, 1970. In it, he discusses his upcoming concert, titled "Elephantasy," his relationship with Johnny Dyani and Okay Temiz (among several other artists), his classes, and other musical experiences. Cherry even plays kalimba while speaking in the interview and offers a short interlude as well.

When Cherry moved to Sweden, he suggested Robert Northern take his place – a French horn player and multi-instrumentalist who had worked with everyone from Gil Evans and Thelonious Monk to Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Sun Ra. During his time at Dartmouth, Northern adopted the name Brother Ah, developed his concept of “Sound Awareness”, and presented artists like Max Roach, Warren Smith, and Hamiet Bluiett, in concerts which featured his students.  About his pedagogy, Brother Ah wrote, "The humanness of life depends above all on the quality of man's relation to the forces of the universe, we will participate in communal music... humbly reidentifying man with nature through sound awareness." Unfortunately, he departed after three years, frustrated he hadn’t been offered a permanent position and tired of the racism he encountered at the school.