Murray, Sunny - Hommage to Africa CD
SKU
URP-SGJZ-2003
A classic from the BYG Actuel series and the first time ever on legit CD! Recorded at Studio Saravah, Paris, France, August 15, 1969.
Sunny Murray – drums
Roscoe Mitchell - alto sax, flute
Archie Shepp - tenor sax (1,2)
Kenneth Terroade - tenor sax, flute
Clifford Thornton – cornet
Lester Bowie - trumpet, flugelhorn (1,2)
Grachan Moncur III – trombone
Dave Burrell – piano
Alan Silva – bass
Malachi Favors - xylophone, bells (1,2)
Arthur Jones - gong, tambourine, bells (1,2)
Earl Freeman - tympani, bells (1,2)
Jeanne Lee - voice, bells (1,2)
“Up to this point, Sunny Murray's solo albums had moved into a focus of everyone playing approximately at once, not dissimilar to Alan Silva's BYG albums, but still his own thing. He recorded one album on August 15, 1969, released as "Sunshine", that contained music in this style. The shock more came on the second album recorded concurrently.
Opening masterwork "Suns in Africa, part one", is a composition, building very slowly from heavy percussion into a downright soulful refrain over its near sixteen minutes, featuring the ever-gorgeous vocals of Jeanne Lee in the background. The horns, once they arrive, are almost indistinguishable, (though it's easy to hear Shepp's sax) and the focus is on building this elegiac, uplifting piece. It's a total shock, still very much in the avant-garde world but clearly also something else: a bit of world music, a bit of soul, a bit of spiritual. It's one of the best things solo that he ever did. "Part 2" seems to deconstruct parts of part 1, focusing in on Lee's voice for a moving refrain.
Side two is something else. Gone are the stacks of percussion and most of the horns, though there are still many to make the racket. "R.I.P." has a great head to it, though, using some Ornette melodies followed by a free breakdown. It's terrific. It uses that as a motif to get to the rest of the track, where Murray can be found pounding away and some of the horns break off to add their own stuff, somehow all without interrupting the motif. This is smart stuff, and this album certainly comes off as the more rehearsed of the two recorded that day. Finally, "Unity" is (mostly) at a dirge pace, and the instruments are all over each other. Through this the cymbals clash and the listener is brought out of the trance. Easily one of Murray's best.”-rym
- LabelSolid
- UPC4526180714613