# David Murray is back with the next generation of geniuses: Video, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2023/07/04/david-murray-is-back-with-the-next-generation-of-geniuses-video-photos/
- Published: 2023-07-04T00:02:28+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Once regarded as jazz’s hot young iconoclast, David Murray suddenly finds himself
a teacher and mentor to other hot young iconoclasts. He’s taken to it like a duck
to water.**

“It’s just so good to have young, spirited minds pushing the envelope,” the tenor
saxophonist says. “This 68-year-old person that I’ve become, I feel rejuvenated 
and uplifted to have this youth behind me.”

Youth, from his vantage point, does not necessarily mean unknown but eager 20-somethings.
His latest quartet features a handpicked selection of protégés — pianist Marta Sanchez,
bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Russell Carter — all of them millennials (Carter,
at 40, is the oldest of the bunch) with established and acclaimed reputations in
avant-garde jazz.

The quartet premiered in January, with Kassa Overall on drums, at New York’s Village
Vanguard. It performs in Washington, at Blues Alley, on June 29 and 30. “I cherry-
picked my cream of the crop,” Murray explains. “I’m teaching them and I’m mentoring
them in how to play with me — what I want, how I want it — and they’re very willing
to come in my direction.”

That the artists are ready to follow Murray is no surprise: He is a legend. In 1975,
the then-20-year-old arrived in New York from his native California and took the
jazz world by storm. Within a few years, he was the face of the city’s loft jazz
scene, a DIY movement in which free and avant-garde jazz musicians carved out a 
space for themselves in the lofts of Lower Manhattan. The Village Voice declared
him “musician of the decade” in 1980.

He was also an extremely prolific musician, at one point releasing as many as nine
albums in a single year. His music broadened considerably from free improvisation,
often using intricate, hard-swinging, if not always accessible, arrangements. Murray
maintained multiple ensembles simultaneously, ranging in size from trio to big band.

When the neotraditionalists swept in to conquer the jazz industry in the ’80s and’
90s, Murray managed to keep his career going at a steady pace. He came to be seen
as an antithesis to Wynton Marsalis, a beacon for the music’s cutting edge.

Murray decamped in 1997 for Paris, where he remained for 20 years. By the time he
returned to New York in 2017, he was an elder statesman. He maintained working relationships
with some of his contemporaries, including Chicago drummer and percussionist Kahil
El’Zabar, with whom Murray has been touring this month as the Golden Seas Duo.

![David Murray (Jazzmusiker) – Wikipedia](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/thumb/8/8e/David_Murray_Class_Struggle_14.jpg/1200px-David_Murray_Class_Struggle_14.
jpg)

Increasingly, though, his own generation, not to mention the older musicians who
first inspired him, has slipped away. “I worked with some of the greatest musicians
in the world,” but “there’s nobody left,” he observes. “All my rhythm sections have
died on me. Almost all my guys are gone.”

Even if they were still around, though, Murray says that his creative sights would
be set elsewhere. “That’s not the concept I want,” he says. “I want to have the 
energy of Russell and Luke and Marta. That generation of people, that’s the generation
I want to play with right now.” He has worked with Carter and Stewart as a trio,
including a tour this spring that took them across Germany and Belgium before wrapping
up in Philadelphia. They were enthusiastically received at each stop.

Carter is a native Washingtonian. Stewart, who is originally from Mississippi, has
lived here for more than 15 years, now dividing his time between the District and
New York. “I like people from Washington,” Murray says, though their convergence
in his band is a coincidence. “Russell is a very strong, beautiful player. Luke 
is a visionary: We call him ‘the poet’ because he’s very creative.”

The quartet, he says, “is about Marta Sanchez.” He adds that her presence entirely
transforms the band’s dynamic. It’s a step he took with some caution, because he
has often had a difficult relationship with the piano. “My criticism of the piano
is very harsh. I expect a lot,” he says. “You know, the piano’s always playing. 
Either it’s accompanying or it’s soloing. That takes up a lot of space. So sometimes
the piano just has to not be played, or else there’s no melodic space left for me!”

With Sanchez, a native of Madrid whom Murray first played with at a festival in 
her home country, he was both teacher and learner. “We’ve learned how to play together.
She understands when I say ‘stroll,’ that means stop playing, in a hipper, nicer
way. And then when she comes in, it’s her statement. It’s not a cover for the whole
band.”

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