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Sunny Murray
Murray spent his youth in Philadelphia before moving to New York City where he began playing with Cecil Taylor: "We played for about a year, just practicing, studying - we went to workshops with Varèse, did a lot of creative things, just experimenting, without a job" He featured on the influential 1962 concerts in Denmark released as Nefertiti the Beautiful One Has Come.
He was among the first to forgo the drummer's traditional role as timekeeper in favor of purely textural playing. "Murray's aim was to free the soloist completely from the restrictions of time, and to do this he set up a continual hailstorm of percussion ... continuous ringing stickwork on the edge of the cymbals, an irregular staccato barrage on the snare, spasmodic bass drum punctuation and constant, but not metronomic, use of the sock-cymbal"
After his period with Taylor's group, Murray's influence continued as a core part of Albert Ayler's trio who recorded Spiritual Unity: "Sunny Murray and Albert Ayler did not merely break through bar lines, they abolished them altogether."
He later recorded under his own name for ESP-Disk and then when he moved to Europe for BYG Actuel.
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Cecil Taylor: Live at Fat Tuesday's February 10, 1980
by Giuseppe Segala
Nella collana First Visit di ezz-thetics, dedicata a registrazioni storiche rimaste inedite fino a ora, l'etichetta svizzera Hat Hut Records pubblica il terzo CD di Live at Fat Tuesday's, completando così la documentazione degli straordinari concerti che videro impegnato il sestetto Unit di Cecil Taylor a New York dall'8 al 10 febbraio 1980. Come nelle precedenti pubblicazioni, It Is in the Brewing Luminous, uscita nel 1981, e Live At Fat Tuesday's February 9, 1980 First Visit, diffusa nel ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler Trio: Prophecy Live, First Visit
by Glenn Astarita
This 1964 New York City recording, now remastered and released on the Ezzthetics label, captures Albert Ayler with Gary Peacock and Sunny Murray at a crucial juncture in the saxophonist's development. This performance at the Cellar Cafe marks an early, vital snapshot of a trio that would become foundational to the free jazz movement. It is a chance to hear Ayler's radical sonic explorations in their initial stages before his sound fully solidified into the intensely spiritual and often ecstatic ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler Trio: Prophecy Live, First Visit
by Mark Corroto
No jazz artist has been as polarizing as Albert Ayler. Listeners either revere him as a prophet or dismiss him as a charlatan. To some, his music is a divine revelation; to others, an indecipherable cacophony. But while Ayler's music was undeniably radical, he was no insurrectionist-- he was simply a true original. His sound was Ayler being Ayler. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1936, Ayler's life ended in mystery in 1970 when his body was found floating ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Live At Fat Tuesday's February 9, 1980 First Visit
by Giuseppe Segala
Nel periodo di passaggio tra gli anni Settanta e Ottanta, Cecil Taylor è stato oggetto di numerose attenzioni da parte di etichette europee, che ne hanno lodevolmente documentato esibizioni dal vivo assai significative. Tra queste, alcune presentano la formazione Unit in differenti organici strumentali, che esprimono con dovizia un momento di impeto formidabile e di incredibile intesa creativa. Ne sono esempio le registrazioni in Germania del giugno 1978 Live in the Black Forest e One Too Many Salty Swift and ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler With Don Cherry: 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed
by John Eyles
In 2020 the ezz-thetics label released the two-disc CD European Recordings Autumn 1964 Revisited which comprised the six November 9th 1964 radio recordings made in Hilversum, the Netherlands, by the quartet of Albert Ayler, cornetist Don Cherry, bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Sunny Murray, “Angels," “C.A.C.." “Ghosts." “Infant Happiness" (composed by Don Cherry), “Spirits" and “No Name." That album also contained nine other recordings by the same quartet, made in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 1964. In 2016, the HATology label, ...
Continue ReadingAlbert Ayler / Don Cherry: Albert Ayler With Don Cherry 1964 Recordings First Visit Completed
by Chris May
It is possible that in his liner notes for this album, Brian Morton has unraveled the riddle that is Albert Ayler. Was he a genius? A hoaxer? An outsider artist before the term was coined? A person in the grip of autism? An avant-gardist who decided to become a (whisper it) populist? A religious evangelist? A leather fetishist? An out-of-his-tree stoner? The list goes on, the speculation will continue, and it is permissible to tick multiple boxes, or none. But ...
Continue ReadingCecil Taylor: Live At Fat Tuesday's February 9, 1980 First Visit
by John Eyles
For some years, Werner X. Uehlinger's Ezz-thetics label has been bringing smiles to the faces of countless lovers of free jazz by re-releasing albums featuring such luminaries as Albert Ayler, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Jimmy Giuffre, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor (to name but a few of many) all with state-of-the-art sound quality. The label's distinctive orange lettering over black and white period images of the featured artists has made its albums instantly recognisable. Until now. The current album has blue ...
Continue ReadingSunny Murray Meets Sonic Liberation Front on High Two CD
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Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
The student of the music we call jazz at some point must come to terms with the impact of the avant-garde from the '60s onwards. Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, later John Coltrane, and the musicians who associated with him brought about a vast infusion of musical vocabulary and ways of speaking into improvisational practice. Looking back we can see that regardless of the rhetoric let lose in the years that followed, the innovations of these important artists have ...
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Sunny Murray in Duet with Sabir Mateen: "We Are Not at the Opera," 1998
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Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
Many if not most of the readers of this blog will know that drummer Sunny Murray is the godfather of “free" drumming. He played with critically important improvisers of the new thing musical explosion in the early sixties (like Ayler, Taylor) and he developed a uniquely effective “freetime" style, one that rarely stated an overt pulse, but proffered a running commentary and complement to the solos and bass punctuations. That's textbook fact. But listen to him in an especially exposed ...
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Sonic Liberation Front Meets Sunny Murray (High Two, 2011)
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Music and More by Tim Niland
Drummer Sunny Murray is a legend in avant-garde jazz circles, performing with everyone from Albert Ayler to Cecil Taylor, as well as recording several sessions as a leader. An accidental phone call led him to get together with the Philadelphia based ensemble Sonic Liberation Front, and it was a fortuitous meeting for all concerned.
This disc is split between two sessions, the first half from a studio meeting in 2008, and then the second half of the disc was recorded ...
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Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet + Sunny Murray Factor in Philadelphia
Source:
All About Jazz
Ars Nova Workshop presents: Thursday, October 20 | 8pm TAYLOR HO BYNUM SEXTET with Taylor Ho Bynum, cornet Matt Bauder, tenor sax/clarinet Mary Halvorson, guitar Evan O'Reilly, guitar Jessica Pavone, viola/electric bass Tomas Fujiwara, drums “He is one of those once-in-a-lifetime talents who can play everything and always sound like himself. Remarkable technique, inventiveness, energy...Bynum can really 'talk' with that horn of his and ...
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Sonic Liberation Front
band / ensemble / orchestra
Anders Svanoe
saxophone, baritone
Ziv Taubenfeld
clarinet, bassPhotos
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Sunny Murray
Instrument: Drums
Born: September 21, 1937
Died: December 7, 2017
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