David Murray Octet - New Life

Murray's 4th outing with the Octet. I have become so enamored with Murray over the last few years that often I can never find a damn thing wrong with his lps. Once again, here is one I never picked up until recently and once again I wonder why not. I am now on a quest to land all of Murray's Black Saint lps on vinyl.

 Please enjoy this newest acquisition with me. What else ya got to do for the next 45 mins? Nothing better I assure you.

1. Train Whistle
2. Morning Song
3. New Life
4. Blues In The Pocket

Murray - tenor sax, bass clarinet
Baikida Carroll - trumpet
Hugh Ragin - trumpet
Craig Harris - trombone
John Purcell - alto sax
Adegoke Steve Colson - piano
Wilbur Morris - bass
Ralph Peterson Junior - drums

recorded 10/6/85, NYC

Clarinet Summit - Southern Bells

Clarinet month continues! But we don't fall too far from the original tree. This is the studio follow up to the previous Summit lps...although it only  took 3 years for them to do so.
 Once again you get a couple of more Ellington tunes. Don't cry, they're pretty goddamn cool. The originals shine and would hold the stage if the Perdido duet wasn't so perfect.

1. Don't Get Around Much Anymore

2. Fluffy's Blues

3. I Want To Talk About You

4. Beat Box

5. Southern Bells

6. Perdido

7. Mbizo

Alvin Batiste - clarinet

John Carter - clarinet

Jimmy Hamilton - clarinet

David Murray - bass clarinet

Recorded 3/29/87 at Golden Thumbs Records, Atlanta Georgia

produced by David Murray

Black Saint vinyl  BSR 0107

Clarinet Summit - Vols. 1 & 2

 I'm sitting on back patio, pleasantly buzzed. Dark clouds are crawling over the mountain. Lighting and thunder announcing the imminent rain. I love an early spring thunderstorm. But there is something special when the music connects with the atmosphere and every thing just sounds...special.

This evening was one of those and these records were the soundtrack. Tonight I offer up both of the India Navigation lps in their unabridged form.

What is so freaking cool about these lps is the way that 3 younger musicians, all coming from different places in the idiom were able to lure an old master out of retirement.There are far to many highlights but a couple are so good it would be criminal to leave them unmentioned. For me, Murray's original solo piece is as cool as anything ever performed on bass clarinet. The Hamilton/Batiste duet on Honeysuckle Rose is a classic mentor - student outing, where everything comes full circle, brilliantly.
  Vol two approaches being a Duke tribute and yet you can almost feel the joy in the performers as everything falls so completely together swinging the the tunes they all grew up on. And just when you think you may have had enough... they reprise splendidly a near perfect improvisational piece.

 The clarinet is such a damn cool instrument that is so overlooked it's crazy. I'm thinking a might declare this the "Summer of Clarinet" and focus on posting great clarinet stuff for the next few months.*

Clarinet Summit - VolumeI

1.Band Intro

2. Groovin' High

3. The Jeep's Blues

4. Sweet Lovely

5. Sticks and Bones

6. Honeysuckle Rose

7. The Washington Square Park Episode

8. Clarifavors

Clarinet Summit - VolumeII

1. Mood Indigo

2. Night Mist Blue

3. Waltz A Minute

4. Creole Love Call

5. Solo and Ballad for Four Clarinets

6. Satin Doll

7. Clarifavors

Alvin Batiste - clarinet

John Carter - clarinet

Jimmy Hamilton - clarinet

David Murray - bass clarinet


IN-1062
IN-1067

* sure..... I will.

David Murray - Flowers for Albert

 

 First let me say that while I was looking for a cover image, I found that one of my favorite blogs had already posted this lp. I do believe that they have a copy of the CD with the "Complete Concert" up though. Which in actuality is taken from two different sessions. 

 This is the original lp as presented except that  I cut the tracks at the obvious spot even if the lp lists them as a single track per side.

 Goddamn! Murray was 21 when this lp was recorded. It was his first as a leader and was a fixture in the loft scene. I was 18 and drinking beer and smoking weed in a 100 dollar a month apartment listening to Yes and Pink Floyd on some crappy little stereo. So to say this music is so far past the scope of what I would have listened to at that time that it is crazy is an understatement. Hell 35 years later, I still struggle with it at times, even though Murray has become one of my favorite performers.

Flowers For Albert

1. Joanne's Green Satin Dress

2. Ballad For A Decomposed Beauty

3. Flowers For Albert

4. Roscoe

David Murray - tenor sax

Phillip Wilson - drums

Olu Dara - trumpet

Fred Hopkins - bass

Recorded at The Ladies' Fort, NYC 6/26/76

India Navigation IN1026

 

David Murray Trio - The Hill

My first thoughts about this aren't even going to be about the music but rather the cover itself. I love the photo and it is one of those that photos that looks so great on an lp cover even if it doesn't reproduce so well here. The dark curtains blowing in the old window sets a tone for the music inside I believe. As a cd cover it is shit.  You can barely make the photo out and you're always drawn to that god awful typesetting. That lettering belongs on a Cheap Trick record but I digress.
  I mentioned in my first David Murray post that for years I had a hit and miss relationship with his music.  You see I came late to Murray and several other like minded musicians. I had no one to lead me. The only jazz my friends listened to was all too well known to me and I was the one looking ahead. So I didn't become an ardent fan of Murray's until a good 25 years after he started recording. Since then he has become a favorite.
 This record has also been a standout in his career to me. What I like about sax trio records is there is nowhere to hide. You hire a crack rhythm section and you play your heart out. Murray opens with a smoking version of "Santa Barbara and Crenshaw Follies", a track I know from an octet outing  recorded several years prior. Before this ends you know you've just gotten your money's worth and you have the rest of the lp to follow. And follow it does, without slowing down or missing a beat, that is until the last song when everyone takes a deep breath, the vibes are rolled out and we get what may be one of my favorite versions of Strayhorn's Chelsea Bridge. Link pulled, check comments

David Murray Trio

The Hill

1. Santa Barbara and Crenshaw Follies

2. The Hill

3. Fling

4. Take the Coltrane

5. Herbie Miller

6. Chelsea Bridge

David Murray - tenor sax, bass clarinet

Richard Davis - bass

Joe Chambers - drums, vibes

Black Saint, 1988   120 110-1

David Murray - Live At The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club

I've had a copy of this recording from a cool blog for quite awhile. Considering that I will never see a vinyl pressing of this record, it is the collector geek in me that had to buy this disc when I ran across it at some local cd exchange. I mean c'mon, you don't see this floating around everyday for under 10 bucks.

This is a reissue disc of what was originally released on 2 records by what was basically a labor of love, India Navigation records. I jnow this was also posted on the tribute site to IN but all the links seem to be gone from there now. As I said earlier as well, I have had a copy from another blog and it very well may be up there still. I don't remember if it was a private blog or not. I don't want to step on anybody's toes but this could use a little bump now and again, so here is my upload from my disc.
Murray was someone I overlooked for a long time. What caight my attention was he was an outspoken c5ritic of a bunch of the new lions who were performing basically hard bop. Foremost amongst these was Wynton Marsalis. While I had all the respect in the world for Marsalis, especially his study of history and his work with youth, not to mention his technical ability, but he didn't display soul, or feeling. Christ he was just boring. And Murray was the first I saw to say it. (Well actually I said it to the teacher at my very first trumpet lesson. It did not go over well. I paid my 20 bucks and looked for a hipper teacher.)
So anyway, that is how I discovered David Murray. Unfortunately he did not knock me off my feet right away and I spent several years in a hit and miss love for the dude. Still do. But when he hits it just right, its a thing of beauty....

This was one of those night, those records. This thing is just spot on. Lester Bowie on trumpet was an awesome choice. Being able to lay my hands on this IN disc has rekindled my love of the lp and I have probably played it a half dozen times in the last couple of weeks. I hope somebody new discovers this and searches further down the corridors of jazz, discovering people who were doing all they could to keep jazz interesting.

David Murray
Live At The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club

1. Nevada's Theme
2. Bechet's Bounce
3. Obe
4. Let The Music Take You
5. For Walter Norris
6. Santa Barbara and Crenshaw Folies

David Maurray - tenor and soprano saxes
Lester Bowie - trumpet
Fred Hopkins - bass
Phillip Wilson - drums

no recording date was provided but hold your breath, because someone will supply it in the comments shortly.

more minutia - track 6 was edited for the cd, and there was an additional song played but not presented on either vinyl or plastic.

IN 1032 CD