Blue Lake (RSD2026)

The spirit of Don Cherry soars again. For Record Store Day 2026, Charly Records and BYG Records present the first-ever official reissue of Blue Lake, Cherry's transcendent live set originally released in 1974 only in Japan and long out of print. Fully restored and remastered from the original master tapes, this deluxe 2LP gatefold edition brings back to life one of the rarest treasures in the avant-jazz canon — a record that has fetched hundreds of dollars on the collector market for decades. Following the success of last year's Record Store Day release of 'Orient' — which captured music from the same 1971 concert — this long-awaited companion volume completes the picture of Cherry's pan-global vision: a sound that dissolves borders and dances between jazz, folk, and world ritual. Recorded live in Paris on April 22, 1971, the performance captures Cherry at his creative zenith, alongside South African bassist Johnny Dyani and Turkish percussionist Okay Temiz. The trio moves like a living organism — fluid, spontaneous, and deeply spiritual. The opening piece, Blue Lake, finds Cherry on flute, channeling Native American inflections that blend seamlessly with Far-Eastern tonalities. The following two extended compositions — each stretching past the twenty-five-minute mark — are sprawling journeys of rhythm and resonance, rich with cross-cultural dialogue and ecstatic improvisation. This deluxe reissue comes housed in a beautiful gatefold sleeve and features new, in-depth liner notes by acclaimed jazz writer Kevin Le Gendre, offering fresh insight into Cherry's universal musical philosophy. A lost masterpiece, reborn for Record Store Day 2026 — Don Cherry's Blue Lake: the sound of freedom without frontiers.