A Wild and Fierce Flame

Review: The David Murray Quartet; Friday, Sept. 5 at A Place for Jazz

Veteran reeds player David Murray lit a wild and fierce flame Friday at A Place for Jazz. Launching the non-profit, all-volunteer programming crew’s 38th season, he evoked the ferocious anarchy of last-generation free-jazz pioneers Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, with gentler tastes of swing evoking balladeer Ben Webster and bop giant Sonny Rollins.

David Murray Quartet, from left: Marta Sanchez, piano; Murray, tenor saxophone; Luke Stewart, bass; Russell Carter, drums

Murray challenged the audience right out of the box with the kinetic “Come and Go” – 20 minutes of wild waltz. He played the whole tenor, from low whomps in the basement to rummaging from room to room in restless chord explorations to kicking open the attic door where the really high notes waited for their moment.

He set a high bar for energy and invention but his generation-younger band-mates hung tight with him. Marta Sanchez played within the tunes, mostly, spicing things up with percussive Cecil Taylor rips when things went furthest outside. Bassist Luke Stewart and drummer Russell Carter seldom even glanced at each other to coordinate; they didn’t have to, as they played from deep in the same pocket, and they happily made strange sounds when things went wild.

That happened a lot, over a 75-minute first set and 70-minute second; when fans in A Place for Jazz’s home in SUNY Schenectady County Community College’s Carl B. Taylor Auditorium might have appreciated seat belts.

David Murray, tenor saxophone

Songs exploded in Murray’s energetic exploration of their furthest sonic possibilities. When (or if) the shock of the new abated some, their logic revealed itself. Everything fit and everything swung, even the jagged bits.

In “Ninno,” Murray’s tenor fluttered around the main theme before stating it clearly, then racing outside. He strolled into the wings after his first solo here, as in most songs; but tuned in to what his bandmates played in his absence. Returning to take over after Sanchez had her say at the piano, he echoed on his tenor the trills she’d just played. Then he tucked a mellow melodic interlude between blazing blasts. Most times, he played his way back onstage, his horn growing louder as he approached the mic.

Marta Sanchez, piano, above; Luke Stewart, bass, below

Explaining the bird-call inspirations of his new album “Birdly Serenade,” he played “Song of the World” mostly in the middle register and in such mellow tones you could imagine Ben Webster or Coleman Hawkins calmly laying it down. Then, as if Albert Ayler invaded the session, high-note squeals and squawks erupted.

Russell Carter, drums

Bebop spunk powered “Black Bird’s Gonna Light Up the Night,” Murray and Sanchez playing in parallel before he left the stage for a bottle of water, leaving his crew to fly it around at length. Stewart echoed Murray’s high-note fire with percussive treble scratching that accelerated into a gallop, then a repeating riff that cued the returning Murray into unified hard-bop funk. 

As the band vamped, he then recited Amira Baraka’s ferocious slavery lament “At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, there’s a railroad made of human bones.”

Nothing but intermission could follow that.

Around the time most A Place for Jazz shows end, they returned to bebop something on the chords of “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” at first gently, then faster, denser; this time mutating the rhythm as much as the melody.

And even “Beautiful Child,” the show’s sweetest and prettiest number that followed, offered its taste of wild and free, a storm between rainbows. 

For Monk’s “Let’s Cool One,” Murray swapped tenor for bass clarinet, swinging it as a New Orleans antique with a bluesy feel; then appending a breezy rush as the coda while the band laid out.

David Murray, bass clarinet, above; reciting a tribute to Albert Ayler, below

As in the first set, Murray ended the second with a recitation, the spoken-sung refrain “He left us here to sing his song” identifying it as his tribute “Flowers for Albert” (Ayler) – title track of his 1976 debut album. Like most things they played, this packed a surprise; but rather than the launch-out-past-Jupiter high-note romp that stretched most songs, this was gentler, evoking the sunny Caribbean flair of Sunny Rollins at his happiest. Here Murray briefly used rotary breathing to stretch phrases past what most players could deliver; inflating his cheeks, Dizzy style, while breathing in and simultaneously blowing hard through the horn.

At 70, aided by generation-younger Sanchez, Stewart and Carter – whose drumming packed both power and smarts – Murray proved he can play anything he wants to. And Friday, he wanted to shake things up, or blow them up, then bring them home, or not.

A Place for Jazz – www.aplaceforjazz.org – continues with shows on alternate Fridays:

Sept. 19: (Guitarist) Peter Bernstein Quartet

Oct. 3: (Saxophonist) Sarah Hanahan Quartet

Oct. 17: (Saxophonist) Leo Russo Sextet

Nov. 7: (Singer) Tyreek McDole