Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean filmmaker who made a run at artistic renown during the ‘70s with some of his western styled journey films, is as much of an enigmatic figure today as he was then.

Making a name for himself amongst the newly liberated late night movies across the States found the South American filmmaker working alongside the Beatles’ manager, Allen Klein, to finance some of his work. With this newfound, high profile support, Jodorowsky was able to ratchet up some of the weirdness inherent in his work with 1973’s The Holy Mountain. Its predecessor, El Topo, though, shouldn’t be perceived as anything akin to a normal feature.

Regardless of the visualization of the director’s admittedly skewed take on religion, life and survival, The Holy Mountain turned out to be tremendous success. Maybe heading into the process, Don Cherry was aware that his musical contributions would add to the ominous feel of many of the film’s finer scenes. But we’re all here on a music website, so let’s move on to trying to understand Cherry’s take on soundtrack music and why he arrived at his conclusions.

Making inroads into professional music during the tail end of the ‘50s found Cherry and his cornet alongside one of the true innovators of the jazz genre. Ornette Coleman may have been sussing out ways to get free before anyone else had even figured out that it was an option. The saxophone player’s late decade ensembles wound up pointing towards a new music that wouldn’t really be completely and properly embraced by the American populace. And for that very reason, a great many black jazz players eventually turned to a sort of cultural insularity that resulted in journeys to Africa.

Cherry was one of those folks.

The African influence isn’t really overt here on the soundtrack to Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, but it is unquestionably a worldly affair. Taking into account the background of the director and the setting of the film, adding in Cherry’s world spanning take on composition, the result is something just short of all encompassing. And while Cherry would at points during his recording career included more African sounds than anything else, an eastern take on music weaves its way into the soundtrack.

Even the concept bolstering titles like “Tarot will Teach You/Burn Your Money” boast a flair not common in western music. The hand drumming and winding violins on this particular track make the music uniquely un-American even as Cherry remains mostly tied to this nation’s musical history.

The cornet player’s compositions don’t always stand up on their own as just listening material, though. But with stray inclusions like “Psychedelic Weapons” and the rock styled swagger included, it’s safe to assume that there’s enough musical territory covered on The Holy Mountain’s soundtrack to sate most folks. Of course, anyone hunting down this particular disc is probably going to be a musical forager to the nth degree, but the album could serve to interest folks in a cinema that may have otherwise been presented as something too obtuse to conquer.