THU., MARCH 27, 2008
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A User's Guide to David Murray on DIW: 1986 - 1997
by Kevin Whitehead
When we last left tenor saxophonist/bass clarinetist David Murray, after surveying some of the many albums he made for Black Saint starting in the late '70s, he was shifting the brunt of his recordings from that Italian label to Japan's DIW. That's where we pick up the story, with the arrival at eMusic of 26 albums he recorded for DIW, issued between 1986 and 1997, in settings from duo to big band.
Considering he recorded under his own name for a dozen other labels in that same period — a useful discography/sessionography of these years is here — you may be prompted to ask, what's with all the David Murray albums?
Down Beat sent me to ask him as much, in 1995. It was a question he'd heard before. He gave a few answers — like, wanting to live well and still pay alimony to two ex-wives. But the heart of it was the same response Anthony Braxton or Ken Vandermark might give for their own bountiful releases: "I can document my whole program. People know what I'm doing, they know the different sides of me."
It's a strategy that relies on a few factors for success: variety in settings or programming, and being prepared and in good form when the tape rolls. Which is just how Murray gets away with it.
True, recording four albums with his quartet (pianist Dave Burrell, bassist Fred Hopkins, drummer Ralph Peterson) in a month (January '88) on the surface looks like overkill. In the early '60s, some folks thought John Coltrane was pushing it, issuing that many albums in a year. But I wouldn't want to've missed Spirituals from that batch (also including Deep River, Ballads and Lovers) for Murray's luminous tone and heartfelt delivery: hear "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." (The gospel tunes are interspersed with compatible originals.) He came up playing in church and it shows. That shared church background is one reason his playing has occasionally suggested free-jazz titan Albert Ayler's.
The strength and pliability of Murray's tone on tenor (or bass clarinet), and the deep feeling he brings to slow numbers, distinguish most every project here. Not even his precise ascensions into the above-the-fingering-chart altissimo register — the realm of screech trumpeters — feel gratuitous, spectacular as they may be. They energize the material.
Not that he won't vary his tone. The quartet on N.Y.C. 1986 is a roadhouse-raunchy quartet, kicked down Highway 61 by the sometimes winningly crude guitarist Blood Ulmer. The bass solos by the Revolutionary Ensemble's Sirone sound like giant rubber bands snapping, and great free drummer Sunny Murray (no relation) lays down a conversational backbeat Murray's sound is harder, more brittle here, with fast nannygoat vibrato — more reckless, in keeping with the setting. It's music from the outskirts, halfway between Freeville and Bluestown.
That said, he knows who he is. One notable quartet project was written by one of his mentors, trumpeter Bobby Bradford: 1991's Death of a Sideman, dedicated to Bradford's recently deceased playing partner of many years, clarinetist John Carter. The trumpeter and drummer Edward Blackwell were veterans of Ornette Coleman quartets, and while Bradford has his own stately writing style, there are episodes set in Ornette country on "Woodshedetude" and "The Gates of Death" (where Fred Hopkins even evokes Charlie Haden's throbbing pedal tones). In such situations, many saxophonists veer toward Ornette's slippery sing-song phrasing, but Murray holds his own ground.
Another notable, lesser-known two-horn date from 1994, David Murray Quintet with Ray Anderson [&] Anthony Davis, pairs him with the equally expressive, excitable and leaping trombonist Anderson, along with Anderson/Sonny Rollins drummer Tommy Campbell, M-Base/Don Byron bassist Kenny Davis, and composer Anthony Davis, swinging and punchy on piano (Before he became famous for writing operas like X and Tania, he'd played in Murray's early '80s octet heard on Black Saint's Ming and Home.) Another strong voice in the front line will push Murray that much further; see also comments about his album with James Newton. The horns sound ready to parade down Bourbon Street on Ray's "Disguise the Limit." Few Murray records are this much overt fun. They even do Chick Webb's 1934's "Stompin' at the Savoy."
If Murray emerged as a free-jazzy son of Ayler, his later career has found him more at home in more melodic spheres, and more apt to be compared to swing-era balladeer Ben Webster. But he hasn't renounced more outward bound ways. Sunny Murray wasn't the only '60s drum innovator he's worked with: he also recorded with Elvin Jones (on Special Quartet, reuniting Coltrane's old drummer with Coltrane's pianist McCoy Tyner) and in duos with poet of the cymbals Jack DeJohnette, and outcat's outcat Milford Graves.
In Our Style with DeJohnette is easily the more swinging and melodic of the duo albums, especially on two tracks with Fred Hopkins added on bass. It falters only when Jack plays piano ("Pastel Rhapsody") or switches on his drum machine ("Kalimba").
Milford's logrolling, bottom-heavy sound doesn't get nearly as much exposure as it should, reason enough to hear the Murray/Graves duo's 1991 Real Deal. The tenorist follows him into open-ended energy territory and squealy overtones that parallel but don't interfere with the drummer's waves of thunder. Graves's "Moving About" is the pretty one for radio (even if it's 11 minutes long) Real Deal is a reminder that Murray remembers all his roots, Coltrane's wild Interstellar Space as well as tenor patriarch Coleman Hawkins (subject of the Murray octet's Picasso). It's what gives him the depth and range that lets him record so much and get away with it.
Considering he recorded under his own name for a dozen other labels in that same period — a useful discography/sessionography of these years is here — you may be prompted to ask, what's with all the David Murray albums?
Down Beat sent me to ask him as much, in 1995. It was a question he'd heard before. He gave a few answers — like, wanting to live well and still pay alimony to two ex-wives. But the heart of it was the same response Anthony Braxton or Ken Vandermark might give for their own bountiful releases: "I can document my whole program. People know what I'm doing, they know the different sides of me."
It's a strategy that relies on a few factors for success: variety in settings or programming, and being prepared and in good form when the tape rolls. Which is just how Murray gets away with it.
True, recording four albums with his quartet (pianist Dave Burrell, bassist Fred Hopkins, drummer Ralph Peterson) in a month (January '88) on the surface looks like overkill. In the early '60s, some folks thought John Coltrane was pushing it, issuing that many albums in a year. But I wouldn't want to've missed Spirituals from that batch (also including Deep River, Ballads and Lovers) for Murray's luminous tone and heartfelt delivery: hear "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen." (The gospel tunes are interspersed with compatible originals.) He came up playing in church and it shows. That shared church background is one reason his playing has occasionally suggested free-jazz titan Albert Ayler's.
The strength and pliability of Murray's tone on tenor (or bass clarinet), and the deep feeling he brings to slow numbers, distinguish most every project here. Not even his precise ascensions into the above-the-fingering-chart altissimo register — the realm of screech trumpeters — feel gratuitous, spectacular as they may be. They energize the material.
Not that he won't vary his tone. The quartet on N.Y.C. 1986 is a roadhouse-raunchy quartet, kicked down Highway 61 by the sometimes winningly crude guitarist Blood Ulmer. The bass solos by the Revolutionary Ensemble's Sirone sound like giant rubber bands snapping, and great free drummer Sunny Murray (no relation) lays down a conversational backbeat Murray's sound is harder, more brittle here, with fast nannygoat vibrato — more reckless, in keeping with the setting. It's music from the outskirts, halfway between Freeville and Bluestown.
That said, he knows who he is. One notable quartet project was written by one of his mentors, trumpeter Bobby Bradford: 1991's Death of a Sideman, dedicated to Bradford's recently deceased playing partner of many years, clarinetist John Carter. The trumpeter and drummer Edward Blackwell were veterans of Ornette Coleman quartets, and while Bradford has his own stately writing style, there are episodes set in Ornette country on "Woodshedetude" and "The Gates of Death" (where Fred Hopkins even evokes Charlie Haden's throbbing pedal tones). In such situations, many saxophonists veer toward Ornette's slippery sing-song phrasing, but Murray holds his own ground.
Another notable, lesser-known two-horn date from 1994, David Murray Quintet with Ray Anderson [&] Anthony Davis, pairs him with the equally expressive, excitable and leaping trombonist Anderson, along with Anderson/Sonny Rollins drummer Tommy Campbell, M-Base/Don Byron bassist Kenny Davis, and composer Anthony Davis, swinging and punchy on piano (Before he became famous for writing operas like X and Tania, he'd played in Murray's early '80s octet heard on Black Saint's Ming and Home.) Another strong voice in the front line will push Murray that much further; see also comments about his album with James Newton. The horns sound ready to parade down Bourbon Street on Ray's "Disguise the Limit." Few Murray records are this much overt fun. They even do Chick Webb's 1934's "Stompin' at the Savoy."
If Murray emerged as a free-jazzy son of Ayler, his later career has found him more at home in more melodic spheres, and more apt to be compared to swing-era balladeer Ben Webster. But he hasn't renounced more outward bound ways. Sunny Murray wasn't the only '60s drum innovator he's worked with: he also recorded with Elvin Jones (on Special Quartet, reuniting Coltrane's old drummer with Coltrane's pianist McCoy Tyner) and in duos with poet of the cymbals Jack DeJohnette, and outcat's outcat Milford Graves.
In Our Style with DeJohnette is easily the more swinging and melodic of the duo albums, especially on two tracks with Fred Hopkins added on bass. It falters only when Jack plays piano ("Pastel Rhapsody") or switches on his drum machine ("Kalimba").
Milford's logrolling, bottom-heavy sound doesn't get nearly as much exposure as it should, reason enough to hear the Murray/Graves duo's 1991 Real Deal. The tenorist follows him into open-ended energy territory and squealy overtones that parallel but don't interfere with the drummer's waves of thunder. Graves's "Moving About" is the pretty one for radio (even if it's 11 minutes long) Real Deal is a reminder that Murray remembers all his roots, Coltrane's wild Interstellar Space as well as tenor patriarch Coleman Hawkins (subject of the Murray octet's Picasso). It's what gives him the depth and range that lets him record so much and get away with it.
