NTS aired an episode dedicated to the music of Don Cherry on 23 February 2018. Don Cherry has been played over 410 times on NTS, first on 24 April 2013. Don Cherry's music has been featured on 375 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 with Blue Note records to release three albums. The first and most famous of these recordings, Complete Communion (1965), proved Cherry's worth and originality as a composer by developing several different themes within each twenty minute piece and blurring the distinction between composition and improvisation. Don Cherry added during the late 1960s and beyond various world music elements to his work. He constantly traveled and implemented different ethnic elements, including the shenai (an oboe-like instrument) until his death in Malaga, Spain in 1995.