Relativity Suite

Relativity Suite is a free-jazz LP by Don Cherry on Jazz Composer's Orchestra Records which was released in 1973.

Studying with Pandit Pran Nath, Cherry was increasingly using Indian karnatic singing in his recordings and concerts and he starts the album with a similarly derived chant.

"[1] Jazz critic Scott Yanow wrote: "Highlights include Selene Fung's lovely work on the guzheng, a Chinese koto-like instrument, and Ed Blackwell's exuberant New Orleans marching patterns on the concluding number.

"[5] In a New York Times review of a live performance preceding the recording session, John S. Wilson described the music as "a mixture of charming, folklike melodies with a distinctly African tinge, of strong, compelling rhythms and, as occasional counter point, excursions into the clamorous, shrieking fury characteristic of avant-garde jazz."

"[6] Writing for The Free Jazz Collective, Stef Gijssels noted that, with Relativity Suite, "Instrumental perfection and precision were not [Cherry's] primary focus, but rather the creation of a sonic universe that was new, global, inclusive with the ambition to create something universal and spiritual, not imposed out of some cerebral and abstract concept, but grown organically from the already existing sounds of many cultures.