NTS aired an episode dedicated to the music of Don Cherry on 23 February 2018. Don Cherry has been played over 400 times on NTS, first on 24 April 2013. Don Cherry's music has been featured on 362 episodes.

Don Cherry gained notoriety in the late 1950s through legendary Ornette Coleman recordings featuring Cherry's cornet and trumpet playing (sometimes featuring his playing of novel horns); including The Shape of Jazz to Come (1959) and Free Jazz (1961), the latter of which bred an entirely new sub-genre of jazz itself. After leaving Coleman and playing with John Coltrane on The Avant-Garde (1961), he signed a deal…