Results for "Sunny Murray"

Sunny Murray

James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray (born Idabel, Oklahoma in 1936) is one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming. 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 ..

1964: Prophecy Revisited

By ALBERT AYLER

Label: ezz-thetics
Released: 2020
Track listing: Spirits; Wizard; Ghost 1st Variation; Prophecy; Ghost 2nd Variation; Saints; Ghosts; Wizard; Children; Spiritis (theme).

Consequences Revisited

Label: ezz-thetics
Released: 2020
Track listing: Sound Barrier; We We; Consequences; Rufus; Crepuscule With Nellie; Trio; Where Poppies Bloom (Where Poppies Blow); Like A Blessed Baby Lamb; Consequences.

New York Contemporary Five: Consequences Revisited

By MARK CORROTO

This 2020 reissue of the New York Contemporary Five recordings from 1963-64 can't help but draw one's attention to the social unrest occurring in America in 2020. In 1964 the riots in Harlem and Philadelphia over police brutality were followed by similar riots a few years later in Watts, Newark, Detroit, etc. In the growing civil ...

Paul Flaherty / Randall Colbourne / James Chumley Hunt / Mike Roberson: Borrowed From Children

By MARK CORROTO

Let's misquote a Rolling Stones' lyric here, with the music of Paul Flaherty “you can always get what you want," and maybe to a greater extent, “you get what you need." For more decades than he might want to count, the saxophonist has been making his self-described 'hated music.' We're talking hate as in a bugaboo, ...

Sex & Drugs & Jazz & Jive: Top Ten Stash Records Albums

By CHRIS MAY

With all the transgressive flair you would expect of bohemian New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, Bernie Brightman's Stash Records made its name with a hugely entertaining series of sex and drugs-themed compilations of swing-era recordings. The first was Reefer Songs in 1976. But Brightman's legacy extends much further. There was a finite amount ...

Peter Hansen - Peeter Uuskyla: JULY 1, 1979

By MARK CORROTO

The year was 1979. Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols died, so did jazz legend Charles Mingus. While punk rock was in a duel with disco, jazz as commercial music was dying the death of a thousand cuts. Miles Davis was in hiding, as jazz fusion (the disco equivalent in jazz) was forcing the retirement of ...

Albert Ayler Trio: 1964: Prophecy Revisited

By MARK CORROTO

Albert Ayler is often quoted as saying “Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son, I am the Holy Ghost," referring to John Coltrane, “Pharoah Sanders," and himself. It might be better said that Ayler was John The Baptist, the musical prophet that proclaimed the coming of free jazz. Like many a prophet, his end was ...

Borah Bergman - Wilber Morris - Sunny Murray: Monks

By JOHN SHARPE

For free jazz aficionados, it is much like unearthing a hitherto unknown archaeological treasure. For ordinary listeners, dulled by all the Monk retreads, there has been little to prepare them for the startling reinvention on Monks by pianist Borah Bergman, bassist Wilber Morris and drummer Sunny Murray. It has taken a while to surface. After the ...

Dave Rempis / Joshua Abrams / Avreeayl Ra / Jim Baker: Apsis

By JOHN SHARPE

After appearing on one half of Perihelion (Aerophonic, 2016), keyboardist Jim Baker has joined Chicago saxophonist Dave Rempis' working trio with bassist Joshua Abrams and drummer Avreeayl Ra on a permanent basis. In one respect the band seems one of the most traditional of the reedman's projects. That's largely down to how the ...