Celebrating International Jazz Day with David Murray

Since it's International Jazz Day, here are a couple of David Murray's performances and discussions worth checking. 

Kahil El'Zabar + David Murray Duo @ Contxt By Trane, May 30 & 31

Saxophone great David Murray and percussion master Kahil El'Zabar return to Toronto now Thursday (May 30) & Friday (May 31). 

Caliban Arts Presents: 

The Pan-African Jazz Series Parts 1&2

with the Kahil El'Zabar + David Murray Duo

at CONTXT By Trane (254 Lansdowne Ave. at College) 

Thursday, May30th and Friday, May 31st

with host Michael Williams (who'll chat with the artists during the intermission)

Doors: 6:30pm, Concert: 7:30pm. 

Tickets: $45 Advance, $55 Door for each night; or $75 for both nights.

About the Kahil El'Zabar + David Murray Duo:

Sir Kahil El’Zabar, was Knighted by the Council General of France for his Global contributions to the Arts. He has performed with luminaries like, Dizzy Gillespie, Cannonball Adderley, Pharoah Sanders, Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Archie Shepp, Eddie Harris, Donny Hathaway, Paul Simon, Ntozake Shange, Nona Hendryx, Neneh Cherry, Lester Bowie, Hamiet Bluiett, Malachi Favors, Billy Bang, Gene Ammons, to name a few. Dr.El’Zabar, holds a PHDfrom Lake Forest College in Inter-Disciplinary Arts. He taught music and inter disciplinary arts at the U.Nebraska/Lincoln, and U. IL/Chicago. He was Appointed by Pres. Bill Clinton to the National Task Force for Arts Presenting in Education. He won the International Ambassador Award from Pres. Barak Obama’s Administration. Kahil El’zabar ,has served on the prestigious boards of the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund, The National Endowment of the Arts, and the National Campaign for the Freedom of Expression. He is also the former chairmen of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). El’Zabar, Has recorded over 100 acclaimed projects, and founded and leads the legendary Ethnic Heritage Ensemble and Ritual Trio.

David Murray is considered to be the most influential tenor saxophonist of his generation. He has recorded more than 300 acclaimed projects. He has worked with many of the giants, such as Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Cecil Taylor, Jack DeJohnette, Chico Hamilton, Elvin Jones, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Randy Weston, the list goes on. He is co founder of the World Saxophone Quartet, and leads the famed David Murray Quartet, David Murray Octet, and the David Murray Big Band. Dr. Murray was awarded a PHD in the Arts from Claremont College, and is also a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fulbright Scholar. Mr. Murray has won 2 Grammys and is the prestigious recipient of the Jazz Par Award from the country of Denmark.

Get tickets for night one: Thursday May 30 right here, for night two: Friday May 31 right here, for both nights: May 30 & 31 right here. Check out a few recent performances below. 

Kahil El'Zabar & David Murray @ 254 Lansdowne, Monday

The Golden Sea Duo Tour of percussionist Kahil El'Zabar & saxophone great David Murray arrives in Toronto tonight at 6:30pm.

An Evening of Creative, Inspired and Improvised Soulful Music

 

Featuring Award Winning Jazz Creators...

Kahil El'Zabar (Percussion and Voice)

David Murray (Saxophones)

and guests

Date: Monday, June 19, 2023

Time: Doors 6:30pm

Concert 1 - 7:30pm

Admission: $45 adv./$55 door

Location: 254 Lansdowne Ave (near College St)

Get tickets right here.

This concert is part of the Caliban Arts Festival June 12-23. 

Check the Caliban Arts site for more info right here. 

Watch Kahil El'Zabar and David Murray's set at Rochester's Bop Shop in 2018 following a short interview clip below.

Watch David Murray live at the Padova Jazz Festival

Since it's David Murray's birthday, here he is in action with Brad Jones and Hamid Drake on November 17, 2021. 

Happy Birthday David Murray

Celebrating the birthday of saxophonist David Murray with an interview about his Oakland days and a couple performance clips. 

Happy Birthday David Murray!

Celebrating saxophonist David Murray's birthday with a trio performance from Barcelona feat. Brad Jones & Hamid Drake. 

Happy Birthday Kahil El'Zabar!

Celebrating the birthday of percussionist/composer Kahil El'Zabar with an interview and "Katon" feat. David Murray.

Happy Birthday David Murray!

Celebrating David Murray's birthday with a Gwo-Ka Masters performance and a swing through "The Opening" with Kahil El'Zabar. 

In The Spirit: David Murray + Kahil El'Zabar @ Remix Lounge, June 21

Better get your tickets quick for David Murray and Kahil El'Zabar's show at Remix Lounge (1305 Dundas) on Friday, June 21. 

Saxophonist David Murray and percussionist Kahil El’Zabar have been at the forefront of creative exploration and compositional diversity over the past four decades. They are recognized by their peers to be consummate virtuosos who produce ingenious interpretations that take their place within the history and future of Great African Music! This magnificent duo shares with us all the hope and desire that comes from blowing fire in an acquired wisdom. This is freedom music in its noblest sense, meant to heal and release one from the regurgitated mediocrity currently flooding our airways. To witness these time proven masters in person, is to be exalted and rejuvenated! They are the miracle of a profound sound, within a priceless opportunity not to be missed! These cats express brilliantly what true musicians feel and see, which is the epiphany to be free!

Tickets:
Early Bird Tickets: $25 – (Sunday June 9 @ 5pm)
Advance: $35 – (Friday June 21 @ 5pm)
Door: $40
Get them right here.

Kahil El'Zabar's All Star Ritual Trio feat. David Murray @ Remix Lounge, Friday

Saxophone titan David Murray plays two shows with Kahil El'Zabar's crew tonight at 1305 Dundas West. 

Happy 60th Birthday David Murray!

Celebrating the 60th birthday of saxophone colossus David Murray with his Gwo-Ka collaboration.

Happy Birthday David Murray!

Happy Birthday David Murray

David Murray does Nat King Cole

Few musicians in jazz history have proven more vigorously productive and resourceful than David Murray. During the past 35 years, from the moment he first visited New York as a 20-year-old student, playing in a walkup loft, in 1975, David has careened forward in a cool, collected, rocket-fueled streak. He has released over 150 albums under his own name. Yet more impressive than the numbers is the constancy of two abiding achievements: as a tenor saxophonist, he has perfected an instantly recognizable approach to improvisation that even in its freest flights acknowledges the gravity of a tradition he honors more than most; and he has altered the context for his improvisations as an infinite mosaic of musical challenges and explorations.

With this new album, we hear the fruit of one of David Murray’s most improbable and effective projects: an interpretation of two albums that Nat King Cole recorded in Spanish and Portuguese in 1958 and 1962, performing melodies from Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.

The result is one of Murray’s most purely pleasurable albums. It demonstrates a tremendous leap in his approach to a world of music that has long fascinated him. The arrangements are imaginative, compelling, and wily, especially in the integration between winds and stings. The band is as tight as a fist. And there is a stunning feature for David Murray the improviser, a sensational tour de force and high spot in his massive discography.

The Cuban songwriter and flutist (known as “la flauta magica”) Richard Egues wrote the enduring “El Bodeguero” (the Grocer’s Cha Cha), which inspired Murray to take a more Ellingtonian approach, using an expansive swing rhythm that underplays the cha-cha-cha beat emphasized by Cole. It concludes with his own signature approach to counterpoint, a frequent joy throughout the album. David’s solo is exceptional, at times echoing the mellow strength of Ben Webster, especially in the middle section. There are also telling solos by trombonist Denis Cuni Rodriguez, a graduate of the National School of Music in Havana and an educator in his own right, and pianist Jose “Pepe” Rivero, a composer with an accomplished classical piano technique.

Quizas, Quizas, Quizas, one of two selections by Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés, is perhaps the best remembered of Cole’s interpretations, complete with Romeu’s lovely strings. Composed in the 1940s, it was much covered and memorably revived in Wong Kar-Wai’s film In the Mood for Love. After the tenor and trumpet split the theme chorus, shadowed by the ensemble, we hear the insinuating, whisky-stained, darker than pitch voice (Tom Waits squared) of Daniel Melingo, a veteran of Buenos Aires rock who went to Spain to score films for Pedro Almodovar, and, in the late 1990s, returned to Argentina to spearhead a tango revival. For most Americans, this will be the first encounter with an artist who has garnered much attention throughout Latin America.

From the 1962 album, More Cole Español, the second Osvaldo Farrés classic, “Tres Palabras,” here given a deeper emotional cast than Cole’s version by the trumpet playing of Mario Felix Hernandez Morejon, who is at home with Mozart as well as jazz. This selection features one of Murray’s most lyrical arrangements, in the way he frames the solos; it finishes with a climax that entwines Murray, Filiu, and Ruiz in an episode that might be called Tres Saxofonistas.

“Piel Canela” is the best known song by Bobby Capó, the Puerto Rican entertainer and songwriter who came to New York to work with Xavier Cugat, and soon became a Latin American celebrity in his own right. Murray replaces Ralph Carmichael’s vamp with a contrapuntal intro to a performance that includes another inspired alto solo and a fierce Murray wrap-up solo.

Yet Murray’s solo triumph on this session is, as noted, the remarkable “No me platiques,” a serenade by the Mexican composer Vicente Garrido, known as The Master. This is all Murray and strings—an eight-minute, superbly paced cri de coeur, combining romance and drollery before attaining a deep, persuasive resolution. Murray original, “Black Nat,” uses riffs to build an intricate ensemble backing for the soloists, including tenor saxophonist Ariel Bringuez Ruiz, though it is Murray who unmistakably claims the climax.
From the 1958 Cole Espanol. “Cachito,” Cole’s first venture in Spanish was recorded entirely in Hollywood, with a Dave Cavanaugh arrangement and an orchestra made up of Latino musicians in Los Angeles. The song, written by Mexican pianist and composer Consuelo Velázquez, best known for her imperishable standard “Besame Mucho,” has three eight-bar melodies. Murray’s written obbligato for winds and the strings gives the illusion of spontaneous invention, especially during the C section—whirling in double-time responses to the melody statement by tenor saxophone. We are also introduced to the bebop radiance of the alto saxophonist. Roman Filiu, who worked with Irakere and recorded with David on his excellent rhythm-and-strings album Waltz Again.

Edgardo Donato’s legendary 1920s tango, “A media luz,” generated a delightful Cole performance, smooth and sure, but in this version, it reclaims its tango roots in a performance featuring Daniel Melingo, himself a musical descendant of Carlos Gardel, who helped make it a standard. Murray turns to the bass clarinet, choosing his notes with care and sustaining the rare sense of accomplishment when two musical worlds discover they have more in common than is generally acknowledges or celebrated. Murray Plays Cole in Español is all celebration.

“Aqui se habla en amor” was the ringer in the Cole repertory, as it was composed by Jack Keller, a prolific writer of mostly forgotten Top-40 tunes (his clients ran the gamut from Perry Como to Frankie Avalon), and his mentor Noel Sherman, who had written the Cole hit, “To the Ends of the Earth.” Murray takes the tempo up and employs divergent melodies to recreate the piece as a cool, modern jazz theme—the layered themes indicating an Eastern quality as well.

by Gary Giddins

No me platiques by David Murray