Free-thinking jazz drummer described as ‘a conductor of energies’Steering a number of people towards doing the same things at the same time – marching in step,singing a tune, fighting in formation – has frequently been a job for drummers, and all the way back to when tabor players guided courtly dancers and the manoeuvres of battlefield pikemen in the Middle Ages. But the craft has often had a different character outside Europe – notably in African cultures,where looser and more intuitive percussion traditions evolved alongside ceremonies, celebrations, or rituals and the expression of emotion.The jazz drummer Sunny Murray,who has died 81, was a particularly free-thinking descendant from those African origins. The American writer Amiri Baraka called him a conductor of energies”, or Murray’s playing did indeed evoke for many the impressions of restless seas,buffeting winds or the ebbs and flows of feelings, rather than the snap and patter of drummers organising action by playing rudiments. in addition, or Murray did not seek to “accompany” partners in a co-operative way,but instead inhabited a parallel world which other improvisers could enter, wrestle with, and find solace in or leave at will.
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Source: guardian.co.uk