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From: mfs@mhuxr.UUCP (SIMON)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: The David Murray Octet: Jazz HOT!
Message-ID: <297@mhuxr.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 17-Apr-85 08:04:13 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxr.297
Posted: Wed Apr 17 08:04:13 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Apr-85 03:18:43 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 29

David Murray opened last night at Sweet Basil in New York. He brought with him
a slightly revided octet: Hamiet Bluiett, Baikida Carroll, Olu Dara, Craig
Harris, Wilbur Morris, Steve Colson and Ralph Peterson. Bluiett had evidently
been brought in at the last minute, because Murray called for a mini rehearsal
before the show started so Hamiet could get used to the tunes.

Any uncertainty vanished when the set started. Things opened with one of Murray's
patented tunes, the ones that deftly cross gutbucket blues tonalities with
avant-garde untransposed pitch. David jumped in with about a dozen choruses
blown white hot. Having thus laid down the gauntlet, he then challenged the others.
Which led to some brilliant blowing throughout the set. Carroll was especially
on, setting down hot embers, but in ordered rows and columns. Murray's
writing is increasingly acquiring Southwestern blues overtones. He often
has the band riff insistently behind a soloist, with the kicker that the
riffing crosses bar and chorus lines. The result sounds incredibly like
the Count Basie band at full cry, or more appropriately, like the
similarly sized Mingus groups. Since Murray does not transpose, the voicings
do not sound unison, but preserve individuality.

It is clear to me that Murray is one of the brightest voices in a group of
musicians that see the entire century of jazz experience as their foundation
to build upon, and do not limit themselves to any single "school". They
have completely mastered the technical issues, and are always ready, in John
McLaughlin's phrase, to "forget it all before starting to play" Anything
Murray plays these days is worth hearing, and his octet work is at the apex
of his body of work. It is not to be missed.


Marcel Simon