James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray was an American musician, and was one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming.
14 Facts About Sunny Murray
2.
Sunny Murray began playing drums at the age of nine.
3.
In 1962, Sunny Murray went to Europe for the first time with Taylor and saxophonist Jimmy Lyons.
4.
That same year, while in Sweden with Taylor, Sunny Murray met saxophonist Albert Ayler.
5.
Sunny Murray recorded a number of albums with Ayler, including the historic Spiritual Unity.
6.
Sunny Murray's unchained approach to percussion gave Ayler the freedom to travel his own road that had hitherto been lacking.
7.
Sunny Murray went on to record his own compositions under his own name, beginning in 1965 with Sonny's Time Now, which was released on Leroi Jones's Jihad label.
8.
Sunny Murray died on December 7,2017, from multiple organ failure at the age of 81.
9.
Sunny Murray was among the first to forgo the drummer's traditional role as timekeeper in favor of purely textural playing.
10.
Sunny Murray's aim was to free the soloist completely from the restrictions of time, and to do this he set up a continual hailstorm of percussion.
11.
Sunny Murray's concept relied heavily on continuous ringing stick-work on the edge of the cymbals, an irregular staccato barrage on the snare, spasmodic bass drum punctuation and constant, but not metronomic, use of the sock-cymbal.
12.
Sunny Murray played with his mouth open, emitting an incessant wailing which blended into the overall percussion backdrop of shifting pulses.
13.
Sunny Murray has an astute gift for playing off extreme tonal contrasts, high-pitched cymbals ringing in counterpoint to earth-moaning bass drum tones.
14.
Sunny Murray is the first drummer who ever played the theory of relativity.