In this matrix it's not which pill you take, it's which pathways you take, pathways originating in the sprawling cultural matrix of Brazil: Indigenous, African, Sephardic and then Ashkenazic, European, Asian... Ground Zero is the Recôncavo, delineated by the Bay of All Saints, center of gravity for the disembarkation of enslaved human beings — and the vast sublimity they created — presided over by the ineffable Black Rome of Brazil: Salvador da Bahia.
("Black Rome" is an appellation per Caetano Veloso, son of the Recôncavo, via Mãe Aninha of Ilê Axé Opô Afonjá.)
Bio:
Since arriving in NYC in 1975, David Murray has established himself as one of the preeminent saxophone players and leaders of jazz. He has released over 200 albums under his own name, working with the likes of Max Roach, Randy Weston, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Taj Mahal, Mal Waldron, Amiri Baraka, Jerry Garcia, Doudou N’daye Rose, Cassandra Wilson, Jason Moran, Macy Gray, Omara Portuando, Saul Williams, Vijay Iyer, Quest Love, Black Thought, and Gregory Porter to name a few. He is also a founding member of the groundbreaking World Saxophone Quartet which toured and recorded for 40 years.
As well as being a well known bandleader, he is a noteworthy composer and arranger providing memorable melodies and harmonies. His approach to improvisation is instantly recognizable. Even in its freest flights, he acknowledges the gravity of a tradition he honors more than most, combining all the influences he grew out of: gospel, jazz, free/avant-garde jazz, rhythm’n blues, R&B and, in his associations with writers, poetry. The great Cecil Taylor compared him to his greatest predecessors who had signature sounds: “You stick your ear in the door, you know it’s David!’’
His most recent trio, The Brave New World Trio, released an album May 2022 after touring for 2 years. The critics unanimously agree that he is at the top of his game! “The concept of freedom expressed here involves drawing freely from myriad styles, minting them into music that is both uncompromisingly rigorous and directly communicative.” (Downbeat, July 2022)
David Murray goes down as a worthy successor for some of the biggest names in jazz, and he is now contributing to the rise of many young talents acclaimed by the critics.
Contact Information
Management/Booking:
Artist manager
Francesca Cinelli Murray
+19176285230 [email protected]
David Murray (tenor saxophone)
Lee Odom (alto saxophone and clarinet)
Craig Harris (trombone)
Josh Evans (trumpet)
Mingus Murray (guitar)
Dezron Douglas (bass)
David Bryant (piano)
Russel Carter (drums)
David Murray's innovative octet, perhaps the best vehicle for his formidable composing and arranging skills, released eight recordings on a steady basis between the '70s and the '2000s. In his words, "My wish for a "Revival" of this octet with a new and fresh line-up seems to be the direction in which the music is taking me, as a way to inspire others and motivate a new crew of creative musicians."
The Octet Revival album is forthcoming and the band has been on the road already, having just recently performed at the Guimarães Jazz Festival in Portugal.
Recommend David Murray in order to appear here. Click on the grey crosses visible when logged in. Your photo will appear, with a link back to your page:
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers: Personal recording engineer for Prince, inc. "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"... Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory
I'm Pardal here in Brazil (that's "Sparrow" in English). The deep roots of this project are in Manhattan, where Allen Klein (managed the Beatles and The Rolling Stones) called me about royalties for the estate of Sam Cooke... where Jerry Ragovoy (co-wrote Time is On My Side, sung by the Stones; Piece of My Heart, Janis Joplin of course; and Pata Pata, sung by the great Miriam Makeba) called me looking for unpaid royalties... where I did contract and licensing for Carlinhos Brown's participation on Bahia Black with Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...
...where I rescued unpaid royalties for Aretha Franklin (from Atlantic Records), Barbra Streisand (from CBS Records), Led Zeppelin, Mongo Santamaria, Gilberto Gil, Astrud Gilberto, Airto Moreira, Jim Hall, Wah Wah Watson (Melvin Ragin), Ray Barretto, Philip Glass, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd for his interest in Bob Marley compositions, Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam and others...
...where I worked with Earl "Speedo" Carroll of the Cadillacs (who went from doo-wopping as a kid on Harlem streetcorners to top of the charts to working as a janitor at P.S. 87 in Manhattan without ever losing what it was that made him special in the first place), and with Jake and Zeke Carey of The Flamingos (I Only Have Eyes for You)... stuff like that.
Yeah this is Bob's first record contract, made with Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd of Studio One and co-signed by his aunt because he was under 21. I took it to Black Rock to argue with CBS' lawyers about the royalties they didn't want to pay (they paid).
MATRIX MUSICAL
I built the Matrix below (I'm below left, with David Dye & Kim Junod for U.S. National Public Radio) among some of the world's most powerfully moving music, some of it made by people barely known beyond village borders. Or in the case of Sodré, his anthem A MASSA — a paean to Brazil's poor ("our pain is the pain of a timid boy, a calf stepped on...") — having blasted from every radio between the Amazon and Brazil's industrial south, before he was silenced. The Matrix started with Sodré, with João do Boi, with Roberto Mendes, with Bule Bule, with Roque Ferreira... music rooted in the sugarcane plantations of Bahia. Hence our logo (a cane cutter).