James Marcellus Arthur “Sunny”, Murray, September 21, 1936 – December 8th 2017, was one of the first to pioneer free jazz drumming. Murray grew up in Philadelphia and moved to New York City to play with Cecil Taylor. “We played for about one year, just practising, studying — we went workshops with Varese. We did a lot creative things just experimenting without a job.” He was also featured on the 1962 concert in Denmark, Nefertiti the Beautiful One has Come. Murray was one of the first to abandon the drummer’s traditional timekeeper role in favor of pure textural playing. Murray’s goal was to completely free the soloist from time constraints. To do this, he created a continuous hailstorm of percussion… constant ringing stickwork along the edge of the Cymbals, irregular staccato barrages on the snare and spasmodic punctuation on the bass drum. He also used the sock-cymbal, although not in a metronomic way. Murray’s influence remained after his time with Taylor’s band. He was a core member of Albert Ayler’s trio that recorded Spiritual Unity. “Sunny Murray, Albert Ayler, and others did more than just break through the bar lines. They abolished them all.” Later, he recorded under his own name on ESP-Disk. He then moved to Europe for BYGActuel. Murray, who was 81 years old, died December 8, 2017, from unspecified causes.
