Body And Soul

This is David Murray with his signature forays into unexplored territories. It's beautiful, scary, melodic, lyrical, charming, and irresistible. Just go where it takes you.

David Murray, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet, composer, and bandleader is one of the great jazz artists arriving on the scene during the past 40 years. His work is innovative and avant garde, but at the same time infused with a love and knowledge of the history of jazz. He has amazing chops and can play real melodies at the highest registers of the tenor sax, rather than merely using those registers for noisy squawks; he effortlessly switches back and forth between registers. Even his fastest runs are highly musical, elucidating the melody and the chord sequences, never pointlessly showing off. Obviously, David Murray’s work belongs in your collection. But with over 90 albums as a leader (listed in the All Music guide), where to start? I can assure you that this 1993 CD, Body and Soul is outstanding. It is a quartet rather than the larger bands Murray often favors, so you get to hear a lot of David Murray (exclusively on tenor sax). The 7 selections include 6 top-notch originals. The excellent rhythm section, Sonelius Smith (piano), Wilber Morris (bass), and Rashied Ali (drums) works well with Murray and with one another. Sonelius Smith is an underrated pianist who will at times remind you of McCoy Tyner, Chick Corea, or even, occasionally, Mal Waldron. Rashied Ali worked with John Coltrane on Interstellar Space. The first cut, Slave Song (by Sonelius Smith) begins as a rhythmic “field holler,” a work song to ease gang labor. In the solos, it gradually transforms to a lament for something ancient and distant, perhaps for Africa. But the modern harmony evokes the presence of the musicians: observers and witnesses. Like Charles Lloyd and Jason Moran in Hagar’s Song, the artists give their ancestors “a memorial…an everlasting name that shall not be cut off (Isaiah 56:5).” The name and theme of Celebration Dance apparently allude to Passion Dance, the first cut of McCoy Tyner’s greatest album, The Real McCoy. Indeed, Murray sounds a little like Joe Henderson here and Smith like Tyner. Doni’s Song is a great ballad. Murray has a magnificent “smoky” sound in the lower registers (like Joe Lovano), a song-like tone in the higher notes. Remembering the Chief of St. Mary’s showcases the wonderful rhythm section: all three have solos and they support each other so effectively that it is a little hard to tell who is soloing when. Odin is an outstanding medium-speed number. The theme is slightly related to Doni’s Song (as suggested by “Odin” and “Doni” having the same letters), but there are uncanny reminders of So What from Kind of Blue, especially in the bass line; Murray’s solo, although more avant garde, occasionally sounds like Coltrane’s. Cutting Corners, a Murray-Ali duet, clearly alludes to the Coltrane-Ali duets of Interstellar Space, but somehow Murray also evokes an earlier Coltrane – of Giant Steps (e.g., Countdown) and the unforgettable collaborations with Thelonious Monk – as if the Coltranes of 1959 and 1967 were in the same room. Ali has a very musical drum solo that Ed Blackwell, the most musical of jazz drummers, might have admired. Interesting – David Murray is absolutely not a “Coltrane clone,” but this album has several Coltrane influences. Ironically, the only selection that doesn’t do much for me is the title cut, Body and Soul, the only one with a vocalist. I think the quartet didn’t want to overshadow the vocalist, so they stay rather subdued; no competition for Coleman Hawkins’ 1939 performance. I can also enthusiastically recommend another Murray album, his Special Quartet with McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, and Fred Hopkins, but I think this CD, Body and Soul, is more essential Murray and should be your first choice. Kudos to Amazon and its subsidiary CreateSpace for keeping this wonderful 1993 CD available to customers by manufacturing copies of it, under license, upon demand.