Articles

Sunny Murray: Homework

By John Sharpe

Sunny Murray, who died in December 2017, was one of the pioneers of free-jazz drumming, having established himself on seminal discs with pianist Cecil Taylor and saxophonist Albert Ayler during the 1960s. Homework presents Murray in 1994 in a bare-bones trio format with a pair of young Philadelphia musicians who went on to work in indie rock. Guitarist Robert Andreano, then 22 years old, relates in the liner notes how his friendship with Murray developed and the idea to record ...

Sunny Murray: On Taking the Leap from One Reality to Another

By Robert Levin

[Editor's Note: From a work-in-progress, Going Outside: A Memoir of Free Jazz and the Sixties][Author's Note: Sunny Murray is widely regarded as the preeminent drummer of the free jazz movement. The “Jeanne" mentioned below was Jeanne Phillips. Although there were, to be sure, significant differences--she was black, she worked a forty hour-a-week civil service job and her one bedroom flat on West 10th Street in New York City was no showplace--Jeanne, who was astonishingly astute ...

Sunny Murray Trio at The Vortex in London

By John Sharpe

Sunny Murray Trio The Vortex London, England September 1, 2009

Two nights in north London with free-jazz drum pioneer Sunny Murray's European Trio was a prospect to set the pulse racing. That expectancy was widely shared, it appeared, as there was standing room only even on the second evening. Murray first found a way to shift beyond his bebop roots to pit a shimmering rhythmic undertow against Cecil Taylor's new thing in ...

Sunny Murray: Big Chief

By Clifford Allen

Sunny Murray Big Chief Eremite Records 2009

American jazzmen have long called Paris something of a second home, due to a perceived promise of more work and cultural acceptance. The lineage in this music can be traced to artists like reed player Sidney Bechet, who called the city home from 1949 until his death and was an early “notable" jazz expatriate. If one could say anything like an exodus occurred, it might ...

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 ...

Sunny 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 ...

Sunny 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 ...