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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 ... 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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- Sunny Murray by Jerry D'Souza
- The Gearbox Explodes! by Chris May
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- Home Cooking in the UK by Germein Linares
Interviews
Album Reviews
- We Are Not At The Opera by AAJ Staff
June 24, 2011
Sunny Murray Meets Sonic Liberation Front on High Two CD
May 04, 2011
Sunny Murray in Duet with Sabir Mateen: "We Are Not at the Opera," 1998
April 09, 2011
Sonic Liberation Front Meets Sunny Murray (High Two, 2011)
October 19, 2005
Taylor Ho Bynum Sextet + Sunny Murray Factor in Philadelphia
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Last Updated: September 2, 2019
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