# Mark Murphy is one of the world’s greatest and hippest jazz vocalists performing today: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2018/03/14/mark-murphy-is-one-of-the-worlds-greatest-and-hippest-jazz-vocalists-performing-today-video/
- Published: 2018-03-14T00:04:14+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**14.03. – Happy Birthday !!! His coterie of fans includes tap dancer Gregory Hines,
who spontaneously jumped up on stage at Mark’s Las Vegas engagement in 1995 to join
him for an impromptu duet. Legendary composer Alec Wilder said of Mark, ‘I was quite
literally amazed. Mark’s musicianship, range, intonation, diction, inventiveness
and incredible rhythmic sense are all of a piece and all marvelous.’ Vocal greats
Betty Carter, Peggy Lee, Cleo Laine and Shirley Horn all sing Murphy’s praises as
one of the best in he business and the legendary Ella Fitzgerald declared ‘he is
my equal.’**

A six-time Grammy nominee, Mark Murphy has enjoyed a prolific 40-year recording 
career, with over 40 releases to date. His original lyrics to ‘Stolen Moments,’ ‘
Red Clay’ and more are known the world over. His innovative projects range from 
the work of Nat ‘King’ Cole to Jack Kerouac to Ivan Lins to Eddie Jefferson. Stereo
Review dubs Mark ‘one of the major artists of our age.’ Mark Murphy is a jazz singer.‘
For decades the question ‘What exactly is a jazz singer’ ‘has had two easy answers,
Betty Carter. And Mark Murphy.’ writes the New York Post. ‘He is arguably the best
male jazz singer in the business,’ declares Rex Reed.

‘Mark Murphy is to jazz singing what Bobby Fisher is to chess.’ Jazz journalist 
Dan Morgenstern writes, ‘I can’t help relishing his sure and swinging time, his 
musical and ever-inventive phrasing and that certain quality of sound and feeling
combined with time and taste that to me spells jazz.’

Murphy is ‘a hipster’s hipster,’ writes the New York Post. Jazziz magazine concurs,‘
he is one of the true remaining jazz hipsters of our time.’ ‘Mark has devoted a 
long career to singing the hippest music with the best musicians,’ states Leonard
Feather. ‘Consider the company he has kept on records. In the ’60s, Clark Terry,
Dick Hyman, Roger Kellaway. In the ’70s, David Sanborn and the Brecker Brothers.
In the ’80s, Frank Morgan, Richie Cole and the Azymuth Trio. Consider the jazzmen
to whose instrumental works he has composed and sung lyrics: Miles Davis, Sonny 
Rollins, Pat Metheny, Charlie Parker, McCoy Tyner, Charles Mingus, Herbie Hancock
and Wayne Shorter.’

It was Sammy Davis, Jr. who first discovered the young Mark Murphy in 1953 at a 
jam session in Murphy’s hometown of Syracuse, New York. Impressed with Murphy’s 
talent, Davis invited him to his show that night, where he asked Mark to join him
on stage. Davis — to whom Murphy devoted his Muse release, ‘What a Way to Go’ — 
was supportive of Mark throughout the years and was responsible for getting Murphy
on the ‘Tonight Show’ with Steve Allen. It was Allen’s composition, ‘This Could 
Be the Start of Something Big,’ that Mark recorded a hit rendition of in 1959.

Mark Murphy was born into a musical family in Syracuse, NY, and raised in nearby
Fulton. He sang in the church choir, where his grandmother and aunt played organ,
and began piano lessons at the age of seven years. Murphy’s uncle introduced him
to jazz through the recordings of pianist Art Tatum. In his teens Mark sang with
his brother’s dance band, then went on to study acting and music at Syracuse University.
He moved to New York City, where he appeared with the Filbert and Sullivan Light
Opera Company and performed in amateur contests at the legendary Apollo Theater.

Murphy’s recording career began at the age of 24 with his first release, Meet Mark
Murphy, on the Decca label. Producer Orrin Keepnews recalls Murphy’s early recordings
as ‘timeless…it’s remarkable how fully developed as an artist Mark was so early 
on. He was born with his incredible rhythmic sense. And he’s matured throughout 
the years, his vocal powers remain undiminished.’ In 1958 Murphy moved to Los Angeles
and recorded for Capitol.

He returned to New York in the early ’60s and did the now classic jazz recording‘
Rah’ on the Riverside label, featuring legendary jazz players Bill Evans, Clark 
Terry, Urbie Green, Blue Mitchell and Wynton Kelly. This album has been recently
reissued by Fantasy Records. Mark’s favorite recording to date, ‘That’s How I Love
the Blues,’ soon followed. In 1963 Murphy hit the charts across the country with
his single of ‘Fly Me To the Moon’ and was voted ‘New Star of the Year’ in Downbeat
Magazine’s Reader’s Poll.

With the advent of the Beatles in the early 1960s, work for jazz singers started
to dry up in the U.S. Murphy moved to London, England in the late ’60s where he 
worked primarily as an actor. Mark continued however, to cultivate his jazz audience
in Europe. He returned to the States in 1972 and began recording an average of an
album a year for over fourteen years on the Muse label. These projects — including
the highly acclaimed Nat King Cole Songbook Vol. I and II, Bop for Kerouac I and
II, Living Room, Satisfaction Guaranteed, Beauty And the Beast and his classic, 
Stolen Moments — garnered widespread critical acclaim and numerous Grammy nominations.
In 1987, Mark recorded Night Mood, an album of songs by Brazilian composer Ivan 
Lins, followed by the Grammy-nominated September Ballads on Milestone Records. Mark
has appeared on U.F.O.’s (Polydor) last two releases, in which he has written and
rapped lyrics on songs composed with the group. This collaboration will serve notice
to the acid-jazz, hip-hop fans that Mark Murphy is the real thing. His contribution
shows that jazz is timeless and transcends generations.

In August of 1997, BMG/ RCA Victor released ‘Song For The Geese’, [for which he 
has received his sixth Grammy nomination] an evocative, ethereal foray into the 
world of vocalese, possibly Mark’s most stunning work yet. Also in August of 1997
32 Records [Joel Dorn and Michael Bourne] released a double CD retrospective, ‘Stolen
and Other Moments’, some of Mark’s best recordings for the now defunct Muse label.
The CD features material from the two ”Kerouac” albums and a tasteful selection 
of “the best of Mark Murphy”. Subsequently, 32 Records has released ‘Jazz Standards’[
1998] and ‘Songbook’ [1999] much to delight of Mark’s fans all over the world. The
much awaited ‘Dim The Lights’ [Millennium Recordings LTD, 1999], Mark’s piano and
voice collaboration with Benny Green was released in September of 1999.

In April of 2000 ‘Some Time Ago’ [High Note] was released. Mark Ruffin writes in
Downbeat: One day, the deserving Mark Murphy will sign with a major label, get a
Grammy nomination, and … oh wait … that’s happened already. Some Time Ago is the
kind of sparse, unpretentious, simple, unabashedly vocalese record Murphy should
have been allowed to make for that elusive wider audience that the majors claim 
to deliver, because this is Murphy at his unadulterated best. Although he didn’t
write any, Murphy introduces five more sets of lyrics into the vocalese lexicon 
on his 32nd album, including a sly tribute to Art Blakey with words to Cedar Walton’s“
Mosaic,” and James Williams’ “Alter-Ego.” Murphy’s sensitive reading of Jimmy Rowles
classic tune “Peacocks” is haunting and ranks as one of his finest recorded ballad
performances. That track, along with his scat solo on “Bohemia After Dark,” stretches
the singer’s tenor into it upper reaches, and both add a taut creative tension that
is a fine example of Murphy’s excellence that critics, and a certain popular young
male jazz singer, have been raving about for years. Kudos also to saxophonist Allan
Mezquida, whose Phil Woods inspired alto sound on half of this release hearkens 
back to those great ’70s albums Murphy made with Richie Cole.

![Image result for Mark Murphy jazz](https://i0.wp.com/heidisjazzclub.com/sites/
heidisjazzclub.com/files/styles/galleryformatter_slide-varh/public/musicians/mark-
murphy.jpg?w=640)

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