Drums | 1936-2017

Sunny Murray was born James Marcellus Arthur Murray in Idabel, Oklahoma on September 21, 1936, raised by an uncle after his parents' separation, he spent his adolescence in Philadelphia. Murray moved to New York in 1956 where he worked through bebop with Jackie McLean, James Moody and Donald Byrd while developing an approach that most musicians found unplayable: a drum technique built around timbral colour, acoustical texture and the concept of pulse without metronomic beat rather than conventional timekeeping. It was Cecil Taylor, who became his Lower Manhattan neighbour around 1959, who first provided the context where that approach worked. Together they attended workshops with composer Edgard Varèse and developed an increasingly radical rhythmic language, documented on Taylor's recordings from 1960 onward. Touring Europe with Taylor in 1962, Murray met Albert Ayler and effectively recruited himself into Ayler's circle, appearing on "Spiritual Unity" (ESP-Disk, 1964) with Gary Peacock, one of the foundational texts of free jazz. He appeared on most of Ayler's major sessions through 1967. He moved to Paris in 1968 and recorded prolifically for BYG Actuel and Shandar, working with Don Cherry, Archie Shepp, Dave Burrell and Grachan Moncur III. He continued performing and recording until his final years. Murray died in Paris on December 7, 2017, aged 81.