Manafonistas

About Don Cherry’s  short-wave radio listening practice

„… He did that well before the days of Walkmans, iPods, or listening to music on phones. Don had large headphones that could pick up short-wave radio signals from around the world. Since the dial couldn’t indicate where a particular signal was coming from, he could be listening to something from Ghana or Indonesia or New Jersey. He didn’t care where it was coming from, he just wanted to hear music that interested him.

It seemed like Don would just listen all day long. Quite often he came into rehearsal and taught us a melody that he just heard on the shortwave. … he had an incredible capacity to hear music in whatever shape it took.“

 

(Karl Berger, The Music Mind Experience. Wolke 2022)