Consumer Guide Album

Colin Walcott/Don Cherry/Nana Vasconcelos: Codona 2 [ECM, 1981]
I don't trust music with bird noises in it, I don't trust concepts like "again," and I don't trust Oregon sitarist Collin Walcott, composer of the tweety "Again and Again, Again." I wonder why Walcott's "Walking on Eggs" sounds like an Ornette Coleman tune while "Drip-Dry," credited to Coleman, sounds like Walcott wrote it (sitars will out?). And when I really want recent Don Cherry I'll put on Johnny Dyani's Song for Biko and get Dudu Pukwana at the same time. But side one is the best UNESCO ad you'll ever hear. Starts with percussionist Vasconcelos's "Que Faser," which sustains itself without obvious melody or beat for 7:08, and continues through the traditional African "Godumaduma," a brief, elegant reminder of where Steve Reich learned his shit. And then there's Cherry's "Malinye," where he states an astonishingly lovely theme first on melodica and then on trumpet before allowing the music to break into crowd noises that somehow enrich the mood, which is then picked up by none other than Collin Walcott--who by this time could sell me a used car, not to mention a brand-new day. B+