Eternal Rhythm: Conversations and Travelations with Don Cherry and Graeme Ewens

Eternal Rhythm: Conversations and Travelations with Don Cherry and Graeme Ewens
Printed in black & white and color

The eternal rhythm is the vital conduit that links music, through breath, to life itself. Don Cherry certainly lived music—and his music remains vividly alive. When he says that music is breath, he speaks of something far greater than the air required to sound a trumpet. From his prime instrument to his beloved ngoni, and through flutes, piano, and melodica, Cherry’s voice is unmistakably his own: instantly recognizable, whatever the instrument or angle of approach.

The Don Cherry Tapes laid the foundation, in 1979, for the Cherry Archives, which preserve the memory of Don and his extended tribal family. The archive began with a series of taped autobiographical interviews and a box of ephemera and mementoes. Now, 30 years after his death, those transcribed conversations are finally being published—illuminated by Don’s own artworks and augmented by author Graeme Ewens’ tour journals and contemporaneous notes gathered over more than three decades of collaboration.

The previously unpublished material collected here offers a kind of “top-and-tail” treatment of one of jazz’s greats, blending autobiographical background—including his formative work alongside mentor Ornette Coleman—with objective reportage from later tours and personal anecdotes shared by a writer who became Don’s confidant, travel companion, witness, and friend. The two spent time together throughout the 1970s and, between 1979 and 1984, collaborated on a multimedia extravaganza Don called The Project, revived again in 1994. It aimed to tell his story from the inside and alongside, seeking to capture the essence of a cosmic traveler and multicultural “organic” musician—from the spiritual high points to the low moments of the jazz life.
The pages on his later years include personal reflections on his fellow musical travelers and reveal new details of his collaboration with John Coltrane.

Printed in black & white and color, 200 pages
Published by Ars Nova Workshop, January 2026