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Artist
Arnold Cheatham
11+ albums
Fusionjazzjazz fusion
about
This powerful 1972 performance by Arni Cheatham’s group provides a unique glimpse of the jazz scene in Boston. The group borrowed the most innovative characteristics of jazz and rock, but never sounded derivative. This is early seventies “jazz fusion” of the highest order, before the term evolved to mean a light, commercially acceptable genre. As with many innovative jazz forms, the recording was made at one of the many local universities, Harvard. The resulting album was pressed in scant numbers and remains obscure even to Beantown jazz buffs. Percussionist Dorian McGhee remembers the group grew from informal live performances. In an interview from after he returned to Denmark, Vagn Leick recalls the source of the group’s name. "We did a couple of those jam sessions for a few Saturdays in a row, and slowly the group was formed… it got the name Thing, because whoever was recording the tapes wrote "Arnie's Thing" on them.” This rare album consists of sprawling, spacey jazz tempered with bristly funk. Few points of comparison for the group exist in the Boston jazz world, then or now, but several influences predominate. The album primarily stands in the shadow of electric jazz pioneers Miles Davis and Weather Report. Vagn Leick’s dark chords are straight out of “Live Evil” or “Agharta.” Drummer Kiah Nowlin keeps the beat steady, culminating in a drum break on “Road Through the Wall pt. 3” that is reminiscent of “125th Street Congress” by Weather Report. The most aggressive m
why this is interesting
This 1972 Boston performance captures jazz fusion at a pivotal moment, before the genre solidified into its lighter, more commercial incarnation. What distinguishes this recording is its refusal to simply append rock elements onto jazz structures; instead, the group integrates both idioms into something genuinely unified. Recorded at Harvard with limited pressing, the album exists in a curious historical blind spot—obscure even among local enthusiasts. For listeners curious about how fusion might have developed differently, or how regional jazz scenes operated outside New York's spotlight, this document offers genuine insight. It represents a moment when experimentation remained the priority, before market forces reshaped what fusion could be.
