Cherokee

Unlike most other other musical genres, one of the wonderful idiosyncrasies of jazz is the sometimes radically different interpretations of the same song by different artists. A favorite traditional of mine is Ray Noble's 1938 piece 'Cherokee.' Written as the first of the five movement Indian Suite, it became a standard by the early '40's after treatments by Charlie Barnet and Charlie Parker. Here are two very different performances by two very different artists. The first is Sarah Vaughan from the late 50's, the second John McLaughlin from the mid '80's.