Home » Jazz Articles » Sunny Murray
Jazz Articles about Sunny Murray
Sunny Murray: Sunny Murray
by Jerry D'Souza
Sunny Murray illuminates jazz drumming. His open meters and timing set rhythm and pulse on a new and invigorating course. In doing so, he gave jazz drumming a dynamism and drive that still resonates.
In the early days of his career, Murray played with Jackie McLean, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler. This gave him the opportunity to open out and transcend the ordinary, a trait that is seen to advantage on this record which was first released in ...
Continue ReadingSunny Murray Trio with John Edwards and Tony Bevan: The Gearbox Explodes!
by Chris May
Released under the titular leadership of drummer Sunny Murray, The Gearbox Explodes! features the same line-up as Home Cooking In The UK (Foghorn Records, 2004), and is in practice another exercise in collective music making of the purest and least hierarchical kind. Murray's leadership is confined to establishing an opening tempo and beat for each of the three tracks, and, later, bringing them to a close.
Music so wholly unpremeditated and in-the-moment as this requires listening ...
Continue ReadingSunny Murray, Assif Tsahar & Shmil Frenkel at Levontin 7, Tel Aviv
by Eyal Hareuveni
Sunny Murray, Assif Tsahar & Shmil Frenkel Levontin 7 Tel Aviv, Israel June 11, 2007
Israeli saxophonist Assif Tsahar could have not find a better way to celebrate his birthday: a concert with one of the forefathers of free and modern jazz, American and Paris-based drummer Sunny Murray, with whom he recorded the beautiful Live at the Fundacio Juan Miro (Hopscotch Records, 2003) with the late bassist Peter Kowald, months ...
Continue ReadingSunny Murray/John Edwards/Tony Bevan: Home Cooking in the UK
by Germein Linares
The overall loose and disjointed rhythms of free jazz can, at least in part, be traced back to Sunny Murray's innovations of the late '50s and early '60s. Having worked with men like Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, and Albert Ayler, Murray found a cadence to match the wide, wild, and multi-dimensional aspects of these free-jazzers. Of course, imitators and copycats being who they are, Murray's techniques are often borrowed and duplicated, some better than others. As heard on Home Cooking ...
Continue ReadingSunny Murray
by Clifford Allen
Drummer, composer, and bandleader Sunny Murray was born in Idabel, Okla. in 1936. After moving to New York, a brief period of involvement with bebop musicians quickly gave way to several years of playing with Cecil Taylor (CT) in trio, quartet, quintet and septet settings (1959-1965). In addition to his longstanding association with the “88 Tuned Drums" of Taylor, he has worked with some of the most important voices on the saxophone in free jazz: Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Byard ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler: The Copenhagen Tapes
by Derek Taylor
Albert Ayler's recorded legacy remains woefully scant, especially for a figure of his musical stature and reach. Coupled to this comparative paucity is the fact that the bulk of his recordings from live concert settings where the acoustics and engineering were often suspect. Prime culprits arose out of his iconoclastic reputation and the general stigma levied toward free jazz in the Sixties. 21st century listeners are the worse off for it. Fortunately, further documents of his artistry do exist and ...
Continue ReadingSunny Murray/Sabir Mateen: We Are Not At The Opera
by AAJ Staff
In the company of musicians like Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray invented free jazz drumming. In return, he was long ignored by the American listening public. Though he now lives in Paris, Murray still makes occasional visits to the States. We Are Not At The Opera documents one of these visits. Throughout this hour-long summer '98 session with Sabir Mateen at the Unitarian Meeting House in Amherst, Murray shows he hasn't lost the touch. Though polyrhythm and texture ...
Continue Reading
