Known for dominating and driving bands with his intense, organic waves of percussion, Sunny Murray was one of the most influential drummers to rise from New York's avant garde jazz scene in the 1960s and remained an inventive, challenging artist throughout his 50-year career.

Born in Oklahoma but raised in Pennsylvania, he started playing drums at the age of nine and grew up tap dancing, singng and working as a bell hop in Atlantic City hotels. Making his way to New York at 18, he cut his teeth playing in swing and bebop groups, studying percussion and running a coffee shop. He did sessions with Jackie McClean, Rocky Boyd and Donald Byrd, but by chance he moved into a loft space next to pianist Cecil Taylor's in 1959 and the pair began to experiment with wild, free jazz improvisations. It led to Murray playing on Taylor's 'Into the Hot', 'Live at Cafe Montmarte' and 'Nefertiti, the Beautiful One Has Come', and while on tour in Scandinavia Murray was spotted by saxophonist Albert Ayler and recruited into his trio for the landmark, mid-1960s, avant garde albums albums 'Spiritual Unity' and 'New York Eye and Ear Control'.

Murray went on to lead his own band and marked himself out as an illuminating, dynamic performer who blew away the drummer's traditional role as a timekeeper by creating a hugely intense cacophony of sound and pulsating, scatter-gun poly-rhythms. His eponymous 1966 album captured the bustling, eclectic spirit of the New York jazz scene of the era, and he hit his groove working with Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman and Amiri Baraka, before moving to Paris in 1969 to record the acclaimed 'Homage to Africa', 'Sunshine' and 'An Even Break (Never Give a Sucker)'.

Returning to America he made his personal favourite record 'Apple Cores' in 1980 and reunited with Taylor for an exhilarating run of gigs and albums. He continued to be a vibrant, charismatic figure in the jazz world right up until his death in 2017 aged 81.

Sunny Murray

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