Questlove Supreme: David Murray

In the last year, The Roots' Questlove and Ray Angry made an album with today's guest — Jazz legend David Murray. David is a veteran saxophonist and a longtime leader within the Free Jazz movement. In this episode, taped in-studio, David explains why freedom in music reflects freedom in life. He recalls highlights of a 55-plus-year journey with intersections with a who's who of Jazz, as well as Sly Stone and The Grateful Dead. David discusses the moods, attitudes, tours, and figures that have colored his career. He also discusses working with The Roots and collaborating with Quest and Ray for their Plumb material.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio, Ladies and gentlemen,

(00:34):
you are listening to the world's most dangerous creative.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Our yesterday is a legendary creative in the vein of
such giants as Archie Shepp. In order that Coleman and
Albert Island has pushed the envelope of what music and
what modal jazz is.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
It's pretty much carrying the culture on his back right now.
Having made over two hundred albums and recorded collaborated with
the likes of Max Roach, Coz mahal A, Mary Boraka,
The Grateful Dad, Saw Williams, The Roots, Gregor Reporter, the
Plumb Projects. He leads the world Saxophone quartet for over

(01:20):
forty years. Pretty much He's going to realign the Brave
New World Trio and come May of this year, his
new project Francesca will be available for mask consumption for
us to listen to. Please welcome to the show, David Murray,
what's my Supreme?

Speaker 4 (01:38):
Thank you?

Speaker 3 (01:42):
So I have to say, and you know I've said
this to you before. Your biggest champion is no longer
on this plane with us, But you know I came
to know you because of my manager Richard Nichols, who
before I even met Richard Nichols, Rich was like the
guy that that you listened to on like the free
jazz station in Philadelphia Radio, and he would constantly play

(02:08):
levels of spiritual and free jazz that I never heard
of before. And he would play your records. And even
though Rich was.

Speaker 5 (02:16):
Talkative, like I rarely heard Rich.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Talk passionately about things, well only because I meant Rich
was passionate, but he was also.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
Like to know, Rich is very extreme.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
But he was part of that crew, you know, the
empty fox hole in Philly Temple University w r T I.
He was part of that whole crew that that accepted
us with open arms. During that time. I mean I
was playing, I was playing with Sonny Murray and Trey's
Lounge and hanging out in Philly, you know, doing those
kind of gigs. I had some very early days in

(02:54):
Philly because I came out from California and people like
Rich you know, they kind of helped me settle and
Philly was almost like a second home for me because
I couldn't go home, you know, because I was three
thousand miles away. And I noticed that a lot of
cats in New York, they go to Philly and because
they felt warm because a WRTI family, Richie and all

(03:16):
the people there love Wig fam Trick. Even that was
after he was after but people like that.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
So I'll say, like a month after I met rich
we had our first music arguments, and by music really
mainly jazz arguments.

Speaker 5 (03:33):
And you know, the thing was, I was going to school.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
At a time with a bunch of young lions like
Christian McBride, Joey dem Francesco, Kurt Rosewinkle like all these
cats who are like now today the establishment, and like
in order to get those guys respecting high school, there's
a certain language you had to speak. And of course
because those guys were younger, they kind of went to

(03:58):
the route of where Winton was leading jazz and the
way that rich would just come down hard on like
no man, like I know you think, and he had
to put it in ways that I can understand, which
you know, the time he was like, basically this that
you're listening to is would basically be like what bad

(04:21):
Boy is, like how people think, you know, there's there's
there's a sective people that believe that that's not the
true real hip hop yeah, real hip hop, and you
know some people that wouldn't know better.

Speaker 5 (04:33):
It's just like, hey, that's hip hop.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
And I was like, well, give me an example of
what you think it is, and pretty much like he
just it was important to him that he sort of
reprograms me to understand your level of artistry. And once
I fell inside that rabbit hole, I couldn't get out of.
And it was always richest sort of opinion that because

(04:59):
of what he saw as the one step forward thirty
steps backwards progression of where jazz was, was like, Okay,
we only want to hear this forties bird level of
bop and really not move forward like he felt that
you and also the M base movement Steve Coleman, Greg Osby,
like people really pushing the envelope should have been way

(05:22):
way like he's like he's a modern Coltrane, Like he's
a living, walking god amongst us.

Speaker 5 (05:31):
Do you ever tire of that kind of.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Fan worship from jazz enthusiasts, because even when looking up
your press, like the Village Voice gave you Artists of
the Decade in NB eighties, you know.

Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well that's because you know Stanley was talking to Stanley
Crouch he talked a lot and Gary and Gary getting
listened to a lot what he said. Stanley wouldn't stop talking,
you know.

Speaker 5 (05:57):
So I know that Stanley Crouch was her.

Speaker 4 (05:59):
Me was the sixth best drummer in New York. And
everybody knows that that wasn't true, right, right, So you
know he said, he said a lot of things, you know,
and uh when him him and went and hooked up,
and uh, that was a kind of a stormy situation.
I'd say they became some kind of jazz police or
something like that.

Speaker 5 (06:19):
Right. So that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
How do you what put him in that position where
he was that authority figure? Was it Robert christa gal
giving him that much leeway at the Village Voice?

Speaker 4 (06:30):
Well, he was my English teacher in college, you know,
Pomona College, California. I mean he had he had he
had probably one of the most popular courses on Herman Mailville.
Uh there, her Herman Mailville, the guy who wrote Moby Dick.

Speaker 5 (06:46):
Ok.

Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, and uh yeah, so he's a writer, you know.
So uh and he was the kind of guy that would,
uh he gave me a card one time that had
his his his fingers in a boxing glove on type
bye and that was his business card, you know, so
like him and Ishael Reid called me up one time
and said, hey man, your boy Stanley's going for the championship.

(07:12):
So you know, Richie knew all he knew about all
that Richie knew. But Richie was also fighting against that
because you know a lot of Richie could see through
all that bullshit.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Was he that volatile though, because I've heard stories of
you know, before he passed, Great Tate told me a
story of like Stanley will be in the Village Voice,
like having arguments of music with writers and then it
goes to pugilism levels.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Oh yeah, well you know, tell you I like him too.
But I remember he wrote an article about me trying
to get trying to find his place too. He wrote
an article about me in the Village Voice called David
Murray half stepping what really? Yeah? And when I seen him,
I talked to him about it.

Speaker 5 (07:53):
You know, I want to I want to approach it.

Speaker 4 (07:58):
To a lot of people. I talked to Winton too,
I mean I talked to you know. I wasn't scared.

Speaker 5 (08:03):
I was going to say, have you ever had a
conversation with me?

Speaker 4 (08:06):
And Winton? Had dinner not so long ago. It was wonderful. Look,
we buried the hatchet, whatever hatchet there was, we buried
it and come to tell you the truth. And I mean,
maybe I shouldn't even talk about it in depth the
way I usually talk about things. But Winton is a
brilliant young man. And I just remember the first time

(08:27):
I seen him in Branford. I went to New Orleans
when the World Saxophone Court test started. Kid Jordan brought
us down there and we played with London Branch and
this great drummer, forget his name. It was a pharmacist
from Mississippi. And I seen these two young men, Winton
and his brother. They were in this in this class

(08:49):
of kid of Kid Jordan's and bright eyes. They look brillant.
Next thing, I know, somebody had said we was against
each other or something like that. I said, but that's
that young man I seen there and I which was great.
You know, there's an article that was in a paper
in Paris. They translate all the great articles around the world,

(09:11):
different issues into French, and they put it out in
a magazine you could buy. You can see it anyway.
It was They had a thing that said is this
man destroying jazz, had a picture of Winton, and then
a lot of article was about me and Winton and
the argument that we had, back and forth and back
and forth. But finally in the end, man, you know,

(09:33):
Winton has done some very beautiful things. Lincoln Center, Albert
Murray's Stanley. I mean, they've created a wonderful situation. And
I wouldn't I wouldn't do that for anything in my life.
That never would have been me. I didn't want that job,

(09:54):
and I'm glad that he's brave enough to do it.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
I have an interest in miss only because I see
the parallels between because we do this a lot in
hip hop culture. You know, the really first generation that
was raised on hip hop. We're just around the corner
from being senior citizens, and you know a lot of

(10:17):
us are looking at those that were born after the
two thousands trying to make sense of like is this
hip hop?

Speaker 5 (10:23):
If it's not. My general agreement is.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
If I don't like it and it makes me uncomfortable,
then they might They must be doing something right.

Speaker 5 (10:33):
They're doing something right.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
That's so good in situations like this, because you know,
like we say, I'm on the communists, they say, well,
it keeps you sharp. Arguments keep you sharp for hip hoppers.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Nineteen ninety seven is kind of that year in which
really the shift of hip hop changed to where we
kind of are right now, which you know, it's neither
good nor bad because I've heard music that I personally thought,
a man, that's classic hip hop, and I'll return to

(11:07):
it and it'll just be like the songs, all right,
But and you know, and there's there's production now that's
way better than anything that came out, you know, in
the last decades. But in jazz music, I was led
to believe that, you know, the path at Miles Davis
was sort of laying down with and you know, even
though people make the most out of it, just brune

(11:29):
on the corner. Like the idea of like free jazz
and coloring outside the lines is Miles wasn't just the
only one. However, you know, something happened in the mid
seventies in which a lot of his musicians had to
find other ways of making income because of his dependency,
and a lot of them started saying, hey, let's just

(11:50):
write pop tunes or whatever, and so a lot of
his people sort of had to go into other areas
of music, which left the gap open. And I guess
the perception was that, you know, when you what did
you make it like your first record, like in seventy eight,
seventy seventy six, right, so when you arrived then I

(12:10):
guess the perception was that you are going to pick
the baton up and lead the charge. And then out
of nowhere, jazz goes back to the forties. That made
people feel safe, like the bop movement suddenly returns, like
in your mind, where did you feel that you were
creatively in seventy six when you're making your debut.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
Well, you know, prior to that, you know, I grew
up in the Church of God in Christ and the
piano player and yeah, she used to be at Ephesians
Church and then Missionary Church of God in Christ. You know,
all that happy day she was part of all that,
you know, So I grew up. I mean I remember
the first thing I remember about music. I'm three or

(12:54):
four years old, and she's trying to learn how to
how to play the foot pedals on the organ, and
I'm making the game out of it because I wasn't
know enough to go to school, you know. So the
next thing I know, I got a saxophone and I'm nine,
and uh, you know, I took to church that night
and started playing. Reverend Daniel said, oh, I see, young
Davis got a new instrument. U he sounds quite spirited,

(13:16):
you know. And I was playing shit like hour out
of then. But I didn't know what the hell I
was doing, you know, but now I do so anyway,
So when I came to New York, I had played
a lot of blues gigs I played with, you know,
I played back up the bad singers R and B

(13:38):
played in Richmond, you know, behind different singers, Tyron Davids.
Different people come through, Davis, Yeah, come through your town.

Speaker 5 (13:46):
What other commercial artists have you played.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
With the new monics? I me mean a lot of people.
I mean everybody in the Bay Area, you know. I
mean I was in horn sections, you know, mixed company, holmes,
uptights and different people, you know, people like that, you know,
working players, different people, you know. I mean, I grew
up in church, you know, so when I came to
New York, I kind of put all that stuff away

(14:09):
to kind of get into this new music movement. So
when I got to New York, I could tell you
we used to play down the Studio Wei and different studios,
and I knew a lot more than a lot of
the cats around me. I mean, there was a lot
of cats that were playing the horn real hard and long.

(14:30):
But I grew up playing the saxophone. I didn't just
pick it up. You know. I had history in my sound.
You know, the horn has always been my best friend.
And I was an athlete, you know. So I could
play the horn and I could play it with power,
and I used circle of briefing for power, not for

(14:51):
long notes. You know, I get louder as I play.
So anyway, I'm just saying I scrapped all of what
I learned in my teenage years and early years to
come into the avant garde because I knew Bobby Bradford,
and I knew Arthur blythe I knew Wilber Morris and
Butch Morris, and I met all these people that showed

(15:14):
me how to go into this area of music. But
I had already learned a lot of stuff before I
met them. So when I came to New York, it
was easy for me to navigate somehow because I had
this history in my young self. I had this aut
this history already inside of me.

Speaker 6 (15:39):
Hey everybody, it's Sugar Steve from Questlup Supreme. I hope
you're enjoying the David Murray episode. Just wanted to tell
you that we have some live shows coming up with
the Blue Note to promote this album to David Murray
and Quest Love and Ray Angry are on called Plumb
from Jami Recordings. The live shows are happening August twelfth, thirteenth,
and fourteenth. That's a Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, or two
sets each night. We hope to see you there and

(16:00):
we hope that you're enjoying Plumb and QLs have a
very merry Christmas.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
Were you aware of the perception like I always thought
that or I was under the impression that New Yorkers
kind of looked down on California musicians jazz musicians.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
Yeah, because they know because a lot of a lot
of the jazz musicians from California they end up playing
that smooth jazz in LA and I couldn't stand that
kind of stuff. So it's valid. I couldn't stand it.
So when I came to New York, I wanted to play.
I wanted to play hard. I mean, I heard. I mean,
I was like coming out of Interstellar Space with Train

(16:51):
and Rashid Ali. That was like, that's what I wanted
to do kind of stuff like that, you know. I
mean I met son Ron, hung out with him and
Rashan out there. Yeah, you know, I met Sonny Rollins,
you know, and I wanted to be like those guys
who was.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
The first stop you in your track moment when you
realize that the saxophone could go way past stan Getz
or just someone that you know, was more melodic and
really didn't come out of lines like the whole spiritual
jazz movement, because even then there's still this talk of like,

(17:25):
well is this jazz is this?

Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well? When I heard Coleman Hawkins play The Possibility of
the tenor, it really the way he played it was endless.
I mean, to me, he was playing avant garde, just
pressing his notes, you know, doing those standards, playing body
and soul and all that. The way he is rhythmic
approach was. I mean, everybody that plays the tenor saxophone

(17:49):
copies Coleman Hawkins was.

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Ornette Coleman was. He's someone that you listen to.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
Of course, yeah, of course, of course yeah, I mean
Bobby Bradford used to play with on that so we talked.
We talked in LA when I when I passed through LA,
I was in Pomona College and I never really spent
that much time in LA. I was mostly on campus,
and then I came to New York on the independent study,
and then I was still continuing with my sophomore year.

(18:18):
I just kind of just started making records and the
next thing I know, I hear I am sitting here
with you guys, just like that.

Speaker 3 (18:27):
Oakland, California has a rich, deep history of black musicianship.

Speaker 5 (18:32):
Yeah, like Sliling family Stone and everything.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
I'm a Slyer church.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
Really when when I was a kid, can you tell
me about it?

Speaker 4 (18:43):
Yeah, we went to Valletjo to some you know, they
always have these uh pastors appreciation times. You know, one
church goes to another and they raised money for the
pastor and then they reciprocate, you know. It was one
of those kind of deals. That's what That's that's why
I met him in the poolpit, you know, up there
with the band. I didn't know who he was at
the time, but yeah, I mean I look back on it, Yeah,

(19:05):
I met him.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
What was your acronym KOCHI koch Yeah, yeah, like what
denomination is that?

Speaker 5 (19:14):
Is it?

Speaker 4 (19:14):
My mother was Tremaine's godmother. We used to take baths together,
me and train Tremaine Davis, which who became Tremaine So. Yes.
So we lived not far down the street from Ephesians,
so a couple of blocks from the park there in Berkeley.
So yeah, I mean I grew up with these people.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Was there any point in your life in which you
did desire uh more of like a commercial route? I
mean the music of Junior Walker, the music of you know.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
My mother passed when I was thirteen, and three years
after that my father remarried to Vernon. And she said,
I just loved that Bernard Johnson. He's just he's just
really loved, you know, the saxophone player of Bernard Johnson.
That's her name, right, And he's got a story, you know,
he's got that thing trimple in this. It's beautiful. And

(20:09):
he said, David, you can't never do better than him.
It's okay, I said, sor right. I love Bannard too.
I'm not gonna I'm gonna leave that to him. I'm
not gonna I'm not gonna be the gospel guy. No, No,
that ain't gonna be my thing. I couldn't wait to
get out of the church. But it was a beautiful
experience on the other hand. But I'm still with God.

(20:32):
But I'm not I'm not absolutely well. I believe that.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
Assuming anytime that you played in church, were you allowed
to even go to that level of.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Not then it was different then than it is now.
I mean when when they started rocking it, I mean
the church that I went to, I remember that women.
I remember the big thing was culos, when they could
have start wearing when they could start wearing culos, uh
to uh, Sunday school, picnic and whatnot. See, that was

(21:05):
a whole nother time. See, now they have dances that
are gospel. You know, my people in Texas, you know,
they they have gospel kind of dances where they they
danced the beautiful hip hop, you know, gospel hip hop.
And you know, it wasn't like that before. Women couldn't
wear a jewelry, you know, I mean, it was a
lot of things that you couldn't do during that time.

(21:26):
Then the music just blew up and then people started
realizing that, oh these kojak musicians are very very good.

Speaker 7 (21:32):
So Koching is the same like Baptist Church KOJK Church.
They both rock out like that you're saying. As far
as musically, they both just get the same, get down
the same when it comes to.

Speaker 4 (21:43):
Well, my brother right now, my brother, he's a kojin musician.
He plays piano like my mom and directs choir. For instance,
he plays the three Baptist Church every Sunday. Okay, that's
when he makes his money up and he runs choirs.
Some churches, I'm not gonna knock on any religions. Some

(22:04):
churches just don't. They don't have the musicians that the
Church of God in Christ seems to generate. That's that's
all I'm saying. Uh check you check Andre crowd see Andre. Andre.
First of all, Andre and Stanley's first cousins.

Speaker 5 (22:22):
Did not know why we want to know about.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
All right, all right, look wait, both of them walk
You're ready, both did now, So I'm not talking about nobody.
So but I'm but I'm saying you see that in
California at that time, two bishops h Bishop Cleveland and

(22:48):
Bishop Crouch. One is in l. A. Crouds in L. A.
Cleveland's in the Bay on Alcatraz and Berkeley. So yeah,
there we go and that day so strong strong families,
very strong.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
Was only continuing your studies your main reason for the
move to New York City.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
Yes, I got a state scholarship to play music, to
study music at Pomona College. I met James Newton, and
he I had to play flute because I you know,
during that time, you couldn't major in John colch ain't
like you can now, you know. I mean I had
to play far aid to get in college on the flute,
you know. So yeah, I met to put my tennis

(23:31):
saxophone over there, you know, And so I started playing
with the Arthur Blythe and Stanley and Mark Dresser and
James Newton. And James Newton hooked me up with the flute,
and so I could get in and do all my
interest exams and all that because I had won a
state scholarship. Because so I could have went to school
anywhere I wanted to. In California, I went by Stanford

(23:53):
and it was bland. It was nothing happening over there.
I went to University Specific, it wasn't nothing happening there.
I went to a lot of colleges, but Pomona. The
only reason I went there was because I met Stanley,
and I met Bobby, and I met Arthur, and I
met all these guys who end up coming to New York.
And Arthur came to New York. I wanted to go too,
So I figured out a way to get this independent

(24:14):
study things, so I'll get to New York.

Speaker 5 (24:17):
What was it about Stanley that dread to him?

Speaker 4 (24:20):
Like?

Speaker 5 (24:20):
Was it a constant thing of one upsmanship or you know? Well?

Speaker 4 (24:24):
I also wanted to be a writer, and I was
impressed by his writing. He had written this book of poetry,
Ain't no Ambulances for no niggas tonight right, Bob Thiel
put it out anyway, you know, And I was interested
in all kinds. I was writing poetry. I thought I
could be a writer and a musician and real In fact,

(24:47):
I did my senior thesis on Stanley's poetry book. You know,
after a while, after I known Stanley for a couple
of years, I had to get away from his aura,
you know, I mean, I mean he was a good friend,
very good friend. But when he hooked up with Winton,
then I had to put some distance on that, that

(25:09):
whole thing and it's just the nature of things. I mean,
I used to hang out with Albert Murray a lot.
Then all of a sudden I wasn't welcome anymore. I
don't know. It was kind of getting the cold shoulder
over there. Now.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
So what was your practice at your height?

Speaker 4 (25:27):
The times when I wasn't doing everything else, I was
just practicing. I mean, I just kept a horn in
my mouth. I don't I don't even know the hours.
It is probably way more than that. I mean, I
just would have the horn everywhere. I mean, you know,
when you're when you're in your in your teens and twenties,
until you have kids, you know that horn is everything
you know. And then it's sometime when the kids come

(25:50):
there go to some of your practice hours. I don't know,
it's just life. I guess. Now my son and I
we spend a couple of hours a day every day
and be Bop just going over because I'm trying to
impart a lot of things to him. Yeah, so you know,
to to my son mingus, you know, and uh, he
could play the guitar, but he wants to know everything now.

(26:13):
He's like a sponge and I'm just glad that he's
ready for it because he's played with me uh in
different settings and uh with my octet and with different bands.
But now he wants to go inside because I always thought,
you know, jazz is the black man's music, and jazz
history is so short, you got to know all of it.

(26:34):
You know, it's a short history. And you you know,
with James P. You know, go back to James being
get all that, you know, get everything, James P. Johnson.
Just go back and get all this. You know, you'll
be blake. Just get everything. Jazz is such a short
and rich history. We can't just learn one era of

(26:54):
it and think we got it all. We can't just
copy people's solo and think we got it all. You
got to go back to jazz. I mean, I know
bass players people talk about jazz before court changes. I mean,
guys have been playing jazz for a while. They didn't
even know what to call it, you know. So I'm
lucky enough to have known some of these musicians that

(27:14):
are gone, didn't gone now, But to go back and
talk to people like I was just talking about Duxter Gordon,
Johnny Griffin, you know, going back to people who really
James Raymi from Texas the bass player. He's talked about
jazz before it changes. I'm like, wow, friend of Steve McCall, you.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Know, do you feel as though were in danger of
what they say, losing the recipes?

Speaker 4 (27:41):
Perhaps because you know, but jazz is blues, you know.
Hanging around with Taj Mahall, he's a student of the blues,
you know, and he's probably one of the older significant
blues artists out here still. So we got to go back.
When we're talking about going back to our roots, we
got to deal with the blues too, you know. And

(28:02):
most great jazz artists there's a lot of blues in
what they do. You know, Duke Ellington, you know, com
base it, there's a lot of blues up in there.
You know. You go back to Jimmy Lunsford, there's a
lot of blues up in there, you know. I mean,
it's what makes us different than other bands. Like if
you think of some of the some of the more
successful white bands in the history, the thing that's different

(28:26):
about the black bands that there's a lot of blues
in there. I think that reminds me of Leroy Jones.
That's what we learned from him.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Yeah, that's right, Like my opinion on musicianship today is
that we're doing too much. I would like musicians of
my age, and you know, musicians I see now there's
a lot of overplaying because no one knows how to
gel with each other as a unit. But you know,
I also know that there's not often opportunities for bands

(28:56):
to even play together unless you know, if you're in
church one day out the you're gonna do everything about
the kitchen sink. But what specifically do you look for
in a musician that you know.

Speaker 4 (29:09):
That they have it? Well, it depends on the instrument.
It's like the band I have now, Luke Stewart, he's
starting to become one of the well known bass players out.
He reminds me a lot of Fred Hopkins, you know,
I mean people who really play with soul, you know,
I mean not just okay, the education and music these days,

(29:32):
I hear a lot of notes, but I'm not sure
that they're all true.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
Okay, So I hear people say that, and I wonder, like,
what set of areas are you listening to that?

Speaker 5 (29:43):
Because I want to know that as well.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
With a bass player, I want somebody who really is
there to support me. I mean, there's bass players that
want to get up in your range and play what
you're playing, and that's not what the function of the bass.
For me, the bass is the is really what swings
the band. The drummer swings the band too, but with

(30:05):
a good bass player, it really can happen, you know,
and from the drummer. You know, just today as far
as drums have gotten to this point today with the
between you go for Max Roach, you go to Sonny Murray,
you go to rash Lee, you go to Steve McCall,
you go to you go to Boohinout, you go to

(30:28):
different drummers, great great drummers. You know, Philly, Joe Jones,
you know uh who I play with. You look for
different things in a drummer than you look for in
the bass player. But if you put the two of
them together, they don't always have to be playing exactly
the same thing. It's not like in funk where the bass,
drum and the bass are playing the same thing and

(30:49):
then people say that's a group. No, that's not necessarily it.
In jazz, they have to compliment one of one another.
And to me, the bass and the drums are the rhythms.
The pianos else. The piano is more of a uh
independent in the band. I mean he he or she
colors as long as they don't get in my space,

(31:12):
you know, because see I've told people say, well, you know,
I've had some great piano players that I've recorded with.
You know, can you imagine having to fire the great
John Hicks are having to having to not fire but
not called back. I never fire anyone. I just don't
call him back. I mean, how do you how do

(31:33):
you say, okay, I've had a Don pulling. I've done
some wonderful things with Don. But after you make a
certain amount of records, I don't care how good your
band is and how many tunes you write, it's gonna
end up being the same record after a while. So
you gotta change otherwise you won't have the longevity that

(31:54):
I've had. I mean I've I've played with Randy Western,
played with Jackie Bayart, i played with John, I played
with Don, I played with David Rell and they all
are wonderful. But you got to keep moving. You can't
be stagnant in what rhythm section you hire. Now I'm
playing with with with mart De Sanchez on piano. She's

(32:15):
from Madrid, and she brings a whole other thing into
the music, maybe a little more a studied approach than
John Hicks. Maybe not as as a syncopated rhythmically as
John Hicks or Don Pulling, but she's heard them both. Uh,
So you know, it's a different kind of pianel. I
like playing with Lafayette Gilchrist as well, and I like

(32:37):
playing with D. D. Jackson. That's a whole other thing.
So there's a lot of great piano players as a
piano town. So you put the you put the rhythm
section together, and I look for people now that are
half my age.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Well, you mentioned D. D. Jackson. Were you playing with D. D.
Jackson way before.

Speaker 4 (32:56):
I hooked up with D. D. Jackson? When I was
with uh just in time in Canada, that record company,
he was with them too.

Speaker 5 (33:04):
Did you bring D. D. Jackson to us or did we?

Speaker 8 (33:07):
I knew maybe rich did, because maybe.

Speaker 4 (33:09):
Yes I did.

Speaker 5 (33:10):
It was me, Okay, I was about to say, how
did D. D. Jackson in my life? It was me.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Totally? I called I called rich and said, hey, man,
I got something for you here. You guys don't like
is that was my gift to Richie and you guys.

Speaker 5 (33:28):
You work with everybody. I mean, if they work with you,
then I know they're great.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
This is what I always wanted to know, because I
never it's hard to find any the albums with them,
and it's weird to ask you what your opinion on
a musician or not.

Speaker 5 (33:46):
I didn't know that you worked with Alu Dara.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Oh yeah, I know of him, but I don't know.

Speaker 4 (33:53):
Went on my first European tour. We went to Holland
and we did the thirty concerts. Uh in my and
was Olu Dara and Philip Wilson. So that's another long story.
But uh, anyway, old is fantastic. And then when the
Wildflowers thing came, when they did the whole Wildflowers thing,

(34:15):
O lou was was was picked out to continue on
and uh to do a big record for Allen Douglas. Yeah,
and so Alan Douglas was he produced after after the
Wildflower session, he produced the Last Poets and also Olu
Dara and so we were all in a lot of

(34:36):
people that was in the Wildflowers. They put a band
together and we we man we were in the studio
for it seemed like months, and we got we got
paid some good money during that time. I mean it was.
It wouldn't be good money now. But we were in
the studio for a long time, and O Lou was
so brillan he kept us in the studio and the

(34:57):
record never did come out. Man, I mean we must
have been in there for months. I mean, and so
in my head I said, oh, louis a cat because
he knows how to run these cats, and he did.
I mean, we were in the studio for months after
the Wildflowers and the record never did come out. They
even had Stanley trying to produce. It didn't even come out.

Speaker 5 (35:21):
So somewhere on this there's something.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
They exist some great things. I had a couple of songs.
I had one tune in the last of the hit
Man that they wanted to use, and then they played
the hell out it. We even had Bernard Party come
in there for a while, a lot of people, you know,
a lot of people. They tried different drummers, because I
don't know, they tried a lot of different musicians. Probably
forty musicians played on that. On that it must have

(35:45):
went off for six months.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
If only there was a jazz label to I'm on it.
You're literally on it. What year was that.

Speaker 4 (35:54):
Well, just just track where Wildflowers came out. That must
have been in our seventy oh, seventy seven, seventy, I
don't know. You look it up for listeners out there.

Speaker 5 (36:06):
Yeah, Oli dars uh his father.

Speaker 9 (36:09):
Yes's him playing on Life's Bitch. That's him playing the
trumpet solo.

Speaker 4 (36:13):
O Lou was great man, he was. He played my
octet and I mean I played in a couple of
his bands, his Okra Orchestra. You remember when he used
to throw out Okra. We had a bag for the
Okra and he would throw it out in the audience.

Speaker 5 (36:28):
Okra Okra. Wow, that's an angle. I never once thought
of what's the reason that.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Well, his name of the band was Okra Orchestra.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
There you go for the cats that you've played with,
and I've seen him, you know, Butch Marris, Reggie Workman,
like all these cats that you've played with. What is
a good living for a working jazz musician in the eighties,
Like is the is the purpose to find a unit

(36:59):
that will be hopefully picked up to tour the European circuit?
Because I would imagine that between May and say August,
if you're a jazz musician.

Speaker 5 (37:11):
You're going to spend your summer in Europe.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
Well, I have to go back to the eighties to
ance or that, because because during the eighties everything was cash.
It was different. See it was cash, you know. I
mean what I did in the eighties was to have
my octet and my quartet and sometimes big band and
the world saxophone quartet. To joggle all those together. I

(37:39):
would go to Europe. For instance, I could have a
promoter in Scandinavia over to handle Scandinavia. I had a
guy in France that did all of France I had.
I had Archie is called Archie in Italy, and I
give them all two weeks, two weeks here, two weeks here,
a week here, bab and I just say, look, man,

(38:00):
you know I need blah blah blah such and such
for for my band. I got to pay my band
X amount thousands a week, and I just, man, it
was a different Now it's not like this now. This
one I was doing between myself and Coulan Mango, we
covered a lot of territory and h we paid a

(38:21):
lot of people. That's what I can say. It was extraordinary.
Sometimes we go to a country we do six weeks
in Europe, we come back and go into a major
club for a week, and then at the end of
the week we're in the studio. So, uh, people like
Reggie Work when you mentioned Reggie Work, when this is
a this is a great bass player who he's always there,

(38:44):
he's he's he's hardware. His name suits him because he's
a real work man, you know. Uh, you could depend
on him. Then there was doctor art Davis, you know,
great bass player, doctor Artie. He was one of the
cats that didn't didn't want to use an AMP. He's
from the old school because he could play. Yeah, yeah,

(39:05):
you could still hear him right and then and then
the word was out that cats have to start using
playing with the amp, you know. And so he was
one of the ones that resisted a long time. And
I remember going to his house up in Crowton, New York,
and his wife was working at a hospital, psychiatric hospital,
and he started working there too, and she wanted me

(39:27):
to give him a salary. It was like she thought,
I don't know what she thought. I was John Coacha
and so I don't know what she thought. I was, well,
you got to pay my husband extra month thousand dollars
a year, and I want to see it. His kids
got to see him go to work every day like that,
and I'm like, oh, and it was a higher amount,

(39:47):
And I don't know. I didn't know if I could
do that. That's why he'd enjoyed my band. I mean,
he played in my band, But I mean maybe I
could have paid him that, but I didn't add it
all up. I didn't know if I could do it,
if I could make that or not. You know, people
have demands that they put on me once they see
my name in the paper, and this and that, And
I wasn't ready for all that, to tell you the truth,

(40:09):
I was just like, you know, trying to trying to
make the ends meet and myself.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
How taxing is it because of your level of creativity,
which I assume you know, if you're not familiar to people,
if you ever see David Murray's name in your town
or in your country, whatever, please like go see this
legend perform. But you know, I also know that for
the decades I've known you, you've always led projects. You know,

(40:38):
You've led your owned trio, quintet, whatever, your orchestra, world tech.
How taxing is it to be the business guy, to
be the responsible guy for your band, to organize things
like make sure your guys can sleep somewhere, eat somewhere,
that sort of thing they're for diem and on top

(41:01):
of that, be in a mind space that you're still creating.

Speaker 4 (41:06):
Well, I don't do that anymore. I mean that was
used to do it. I used I used to do it.
It was difficult, but you know, I spent a lot
of time in bars. I don't know how I did it.
I guess having that youthful energy helped. Being able to
talk a whole bunch of crap was, you know. And

(41:27):
the whole other thing was I always in terms of
records and recordings, I always had to make whoever was
the small company that was going to make a record
for me. I always used to have to make him
think it was their idea and then they would do it.

Speaker 5 (41:44):
You remember that time we were gonna do the Plumb
sequel record.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
That was my idea, right, Well, yeah, it's because I
asked that simply because, like if you've seen Quincy Jones
Is Listen Up documentary, the thing that actually led him
to pop music was the fact that.

Speaker 5 (42:06):
You know, one bad tour.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
One mismanaged tour could almost put you in a position where,
you know, he was getting aneurysms because he realized that
he was responsible for, you know, the orchestra thirty people
and show me about it didn't figure in hotels and
flights and all those things, and he had to get
a day job as an an r.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Believe me, I understand, and I did see it. I
understand that one time we went on a tour. We
went out west, we went to Chicago, we played Chicago Fest. Cooney,
my manager at the time, he got ripped off at
the hotel the chain Mays ripped him off some of
the band's money and we were on our way out
to Denver to play at the Blue Note, and then

(42:53):
then they canceled on the way out there. We ended
up playing at that Tabuddhist place out there in Denver,
the guy at Peace Church in New York on Ninth
Street and second Hofurn. No, no, no, it was a
it was a Buddhist place.

Speaker 5 (43:09):
It's a it's a real father.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
No, no, it was. It was a Buddhist It wasn't.
Oh okay, it's actually a famous place. It's in Colorado,
in Colorado. Yeah, Anyway, we swung around and we went
to California. We came back around Texas and we played
at the place on that was associated in Dallas Fort Worth,
and then we came to New York. When I got
back to New York, oh, the band fifteen thousand dollars.

(43:38):
And during that time, I was like, you know, some money,
and so I had the Monday nights at the Sweet Basil.
So I was paying the cast on the back door
from the tour and the cast on the stage I
was juggling. It was yeah, it was pay par and
I finally got it off me, you know, because I
couldn't have that reputation. I mean, I mean we could

(44:02):
blame some of that on those chamber made at the
Blackstone Hotel in Chicago.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
It's rough, man, I mean, it wasn't easy to doing
all that. But now I have help. You know, my wife, Francesca,
she's been very helpful over the of these last few years.
Tomorrow's our anniversary for the project, right, yeah. Yeah, So
now she does a lot of my business, and she

(44:29):
doesn't want to because she has her own tie business
going on. And it's starting to pick up, and I'm
gonna have to find some some new agencies, bigger agencies
to deal with, so we could kind of manage it
a lot better, you know. But as time goes on,
hopefully it to get easier and easier, so I could

(44:50):
just relax and deal with music.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
So what's the climate now for the jazz musician again?
Living in Europe in the early nineties, jazz music everywhere,
Like the roots, ourselves were essentially just jazz musicians. We
were doing all those festivals. Would we've done a lot
with you?

Speaker 5 (45:13):
However?

Speaker 3 (45:13):
You know, I know time moves on, and when time
moves on, something might get lost in the rear view mirror.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
So what I would like to do now is more
or less, do less but more substantial gigs and have
time in between. I don't really want to do the
twenty six nights out of thirty. If I could help it,
of course I will if I must, But I'd like
to have the luxury of being able to play somewhere

(45:47):
at the Nice festival, wait a couple of days and
three days and then play at another one and move
around a little easier. But you know, sometimes the demands
changed that idea. I don't need all the gigs. There's
gigs that I come to me that I kind of
pass off to other people and said, yeah, Well, one

(46:10):
time I did a I had an article came out
in one of the papers, Times or something. They said
big fish in small pond. You know when those you
get those kind of articles, it just makes you say, well,
what am I doing? I mean, one time I seen
a picture of myself and I had I had this
triple breasted suit, you know, and finally finally the lapels

(46:30):
is pointing at the camera and I said, is you're
working too hard? Man? I had to see that picture
to understand that I was just straining myself. I'm blowing
hard every night and see James. But Oltma told me, says,
you know, David, you know there's a lot of cats
playing saxophone out here, but you might be the one

(46:51):
of the only ones that is free. And that's what
I want. I just want to be free. I want
to be free in my music. I don't want to
be a B bop player. I don't want to be
an avant garde. I want to be free on any music.
Did I play at least for you?

Speaker 5 (47:07):
Uh? Where you are now? What's the easiest lane for you?

Speaker 3 (47:11):
And I'm asking in terms of I would assume that
if you're doing bop that it's more about your your
scale knowledge.

Speaker 5 (47:20):
But when you're doing your free jazz.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Like you, your physical stamina has to be I assuming tip
top shape because you're blowing the ship out that horn.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
So for me, the most challenging thing is to have
is to play freedom on top of everything, with everything
and be part. If I'm playing bebop, I want to
play bebop and I want to be in it and
I want to be above it at the same time.
What if if I play with Bob wid the other
night at the Apollow John Mala Dean and that was

(47:55):
a wonderful yeah, yeah yeah, and that benefit they had
the other day, it was a wonderful show. But I
pride myself in bringing freedom into any kind of music.
When I played in church, I was free. I got
it to the point where nobody cared after a while
because they liked what I was playing. I think every

(48:18):
music has its difficulties. I love be about music. My
special gift is to be able to play any kind
of music, because the more music that you learn how
to play, the more people can play with. When I
did the nat King Cole and Espanol and we played
at the Salle play L in Paris with Omarra Patundo

(48:39):
and I wrote string arrangements, had ten strings, twelve strings
and a five piece horn section and Omara Patuna man.
When we finished that show was ready to go to Vegas.
That was probably as commercial as I could probably ever be.
But at the same time, I'm playing freedom and see

(49:01):
that's what's special about me, and I've been criticized for it,
but that is my cradle. I want freedom in everything
I do.

Speaker 8 (49:14):
I think our listeners might be curious about the Philadelphia halfway.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Oldelphi appearance of Dave Murray Inn.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
We were trying to figure out if we were going
to make a say what Man a running joke on
every roots album, But for the first four years, like
the idea of Tariq freestyling and scatting to each instrument
on stage was like one of our ways to pass
the time on you know, all right, we got three
hours to do a showy man.

Speaker 5 (49:42):
Well no, no, no, I'm just saying that.

Speaker 3 (49:44):
We you know, we did it on Organics and then
we did it on Do You Want More? And Richard
was like, well, let's do it on Ihiladelph Half Life.
So we were doing it, but you know, Dreek was
kind of in his rebellious stance of hey, all that
jazzy stuff is now in the rearview mirror, like I
gotta I gotta earn five mics in the source and

(50:06):
this ain't it. So we tried and then it just
fell kind of fell apart.

Speaker 5 (50:11):
But so weird.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
Like you, you've done so many gigs, something that might
mean something to me, you might forget about. But one
of our first years at the Tonight Show, I remember
we did a gig you me furnon Reid Ornette Coleman.
Uh no, no, no, we we flew to uh London.

Speaker 4 (50:38):
Oh right, yeah that when they did that festival they yok,
was like the jazz madness.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
All I remember was that this was like maybe the
fourth month of Fallon and it was a Friday show.
We did the last of the note and we didn't
have time to like even run and change our clothes.
Like we run straight to the airport in our show clothes.
That's right, I remember, got off the plane in our
show clothes, went through customs, waited an hour for them

(51:10):
to damn near antal probus and then go straight to
the venue and rehearse like three hours or so. For you, though,
can you talk about playing with or Nott Coleman, Because
I kept asking at the time, like are we going
to rehearse with him or we just play?

Speaker 5 (51:26):
He's like, no, man, we just play what we feel.

Speaker 4 (51:28):
Yeah, I remember because when on This showed up and
we were doing we were doing like a sound check,
I guess, and on it he didn't want to do
the sound check, so he had me check his mic,
and so he gave me a listener right there while
checking his mic because he had a very particular way
he wanted to shrill us up his horn to come out.
He says, yeah, do your saxophone like that. I said, no,

(51:51):
that's okay on that. But I got it though, I
got it. I got it because I was always friends
with on that and he cared for me, you know,
because I knew Bobby Bradford of course, and Charles Moffatt,
you know, they all go back to Fort Worth. But yeah,
Arnett didn't need to be hers because that's going to

(52:13):
play on that, dependent on whatever anybody else is doing,
He's gonna he's gonna be pure on that if he's
playing with thirteen Whales, it's gonna be pure on that.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
When I was sort of shedding heavy with Chris McBride
and some George Butler esque uh George projects, they told
me to getting to Andrew Cyril Rich actually gave me
the record the Shaquille's Warrior album.

Speaker 5 (52:43):
Could you talk about the.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Migenn of that record, because that was one of the
first records that Rich was like, study this record and.

Speaker 4 (52:52):
Or Shaquille was one or two? That's two, the one
that came out in ninety one. Okay, that must have
been one. Yeah, okay, well that's when when Don we
had yeah and Sam Frank's guitar. These were my childhood friends.
We used to be with the notations of Soul when

(53:12):
I was growing up in the Bay Area. Yeah. We
used to back up a lot of different groups, you know,
Barbara Treegler and the Numnics, different people, R and B. Yeah,
So playing with Don because I had done on piano,
but when I I didn't understand that he really it

(53:33):
wasn't revealed to me at that time that he played
organ like that. And you know, his experience in the
church is very similar to mine so much soul in
his organ playing. And I remember when we did the
we did the first album and it was quite successful
during that time because we were on the run. We
went to Japan. I remember they brought an organ. They

(53:55):
brought a hamm and B three, but it was it
was one of those very new kind and it came
with a big manual. We were sitting there at this
club in Tokyo and Don didn't even get up. Don
wouldn't even open the manual. He said, that organ, you
could take that back. He said, go get me one
with some cigarette burns on it and give me a

(54:18):
give yeah, give me a real hamm of organ. I'm
not gonna do that. That's all gadgets and stuff like that.
And so they finally bought one and we played six
nights at this club and it was wonderful and that
was a great experience. And when we did Shock Kills two,

(54:39):
that's when Don told me he was sick, and so
that was a different kind of date. But he waited.
Don was a kind of cat who would It was
always a wild card with Don. He would wait until
he got in the studio and start writing a tune.
And by the time the session was over That was
a hit tune. It was always the number one tune

(55:02):
uh he had, and it was a way the way
he dealt with things. Uh. Very private man, very very
deep reader. He's a real reader. I'm a reader too.
You know, you could in jazz musicians, we don't have
a lot of people to maybe readers, but but you could,
since when you were around these people, the conversations that
we had on the road, and very deep thinking person.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
Reader in terms of philosophy or you're talking about notes, notating.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
I'm talking about philosophilosophy in life, you know, just books
in general. I mean, I mean I tried to make
sure all of my children are readers, you know. I
mean you could tell a person who reads and the
person who doesn't read. I mean, you know, I mean
that's part of my growing up. I mean, I was
heavily influenced by a lot of writers. I wanted to

(55:50):
be a writer, like I said.

Speaker 7 (55:51):
Before, highly educated too, you know, so it's important it's
important that.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
But he was that kind of a person, and you
know John Hicks too. You know, when you're around people
like that, it just kind of inspires you to, uh
to know that you're on the right path. Perhaps. You know,
you have a complimense that you want to make that
are personal to you, and you have to keep your
mind filled with many things, you know. I mean like

(56:20):
I'm doing a blues project with Ishmael Reid, and that
keeps me a lot of times when I you know,
I always always go to him when I need some
inspiration in terms of words, and uh, you know, I
have my favorite writers and I constantly read.

Speaker 9 (56:38):
You mentioned earlier you talked about sun Raw. He had
a singer that in his orchestra, June Tyson. Yeah, I knew, Yeah,
we talk about her.

Speaker 4 (56:46):
She was.

Speaker 5 (56:47):
I loved her voice, and she's like.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Oh, I used to love her. I loved her and
I loved her Space dancers too, because her to make
grossner you know, Mickey Davidson, Uh, Sheryl so wonderful people
around Sunnraw. I mean when I met Sunray, I was
out in California and they played at the Transitdental Meditation,

(57:10):
some kind of place on Telegraph Avenue, and he started
talking to Butcher and I and we closed the joint.
I mean it's three o'clock and everybody's left, and he's
sitting there. He's sitting there just talking to me and
Butch and just this philosophy. Do you just say much
back to Sunrow you say yeah, yeah, oh yeah, right
on words. You know they weren't even saying that then.

(57:32):
But you know, I was like, wow, man, and he
take you too many places. So he always hit on
me to play in this band. I was like, what
time he always hit on me. I was like, no, man,
I got a family. Man, I can't.

Speaker 5 (57:46):
I can't trying to get paid.

Speaker 4 (57:48):
Yeah yeah, I mean, you know.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
If you can mention like what would have been a
bad gig back in the day on that level, like
now it's shaky. He doesn't pay as musicians, Oh.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Oh bad gig. One of those gigs when nobody shows
up doing loft jazz sometimes, you know, sometimes you would
be very successful. Loft jazz was basically on the door.
But when you were successful, yeah, because I used to.
I used to have some skates, and I had a backpack,

(58:22):
and I had a tape, and I had things that
put posters up everywhere, and I got pretty good at it.
If you got a voice, choice, you got a little thing,
a little blurb in the times, you might have a
packed house. So people started giving me their flyers, and
I became an emissary for like you know, Loft Jazz

(58:44):
and so. But a bad gig would have been when
you didn't get a voice choice or something happened technical
like that and you didn't get the publicity out. But
most of the times when you did, you would get
the returns. But every once in a while it would
come up flat.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
Were you friends with Robert Christigo at the Voice?

Speaker 4 (59:04):
Not really? I knew him, he was, I knew him.

Speaker 5 (59:08):
A major fan of yours, Yes he was.

Speaker 4 (59:10):
No, Yes he was. I knew him, but I knew
him mostly through Stanley and uh that was the guy
at SO who News. There was nothing. There was other
people that I knew very Chris Kyle was not in
my generation, but but I knew him. Of course I
knew him. I knew everything.

Speaker 3 (59:27):
Well, I'm obsessed with his writing as a critic, and
you know pretty much all his choices on jazz or whatever,
like you're always at the top of.

Speaker 5 (59:35):
His Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 4 (59:39):
Probably, and Gary Gettings too, I would, I would imagine,
But Chris Kyle, no, he knew what he was doing.
You know.

Speaker 5 (59:45):
Were there critics that irks you and.

Speaker 4 (59:47):
That was Peter Ochio girls from.

Speaker 5 (59:50):
The had receipts ready, and.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
Then then there was uh, you know the guy at
the time, and so anyway, people come and people go.
But I knew most of the critics. I may not
can remember all their names. But you know, every once
in a while you get blasted. I mean I did
a couple of stream concerts. I got blasted a few times. Yeah,
but it maybe go back and do a better job.

Speaker 3 (01:00:14):
David, we were talking about tunes before, like how much
your day is spent actually playing and practicing versus sitting
and writing composing.

Speaker 5 (01:00:22):
Like what's the how does that? How did you'd rather
be practicing right now than talking to this man? Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
But like because we were talking about like actual physical
art of writing a tune versus just playing.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
Well, I'm kind of like, I guess I'm taking a
break because I just made this album. And when I'm
making an album, I usually come up with maybe twelve
or thirteen songs, and I got to wheeled down to
seven or eight maybe. So during COVID Man, I wrote

(01:00:52):
so many tunes I throw them away like airplanes. But
you know, it made no sense to write for big
band during that time because we couldn't even get a
trio on the stage. You know, I have a lot
of big band music and orchestra music that I've written
that there's no chance of playing it during this time.

(01:01:16):
It would be great to have a resurgence of big bands.
That would be fantastic. Those times are not I'm looking
to get a court in on stage.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
You know you mentioned your desire to write. Do you
have any of your things on manuscript or like? Have
you written pieces writing in terms of fiction? I've assumed
that you're saying when you wanted to be a writer.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
You're oh, well, that was when I was. I was
in high school, in my first year in college. I
don't I don't even know where that stuff is. But
as far as I didn't get that far, you want
to know, because when I had written a my senior

(01:02:04):
thesis in high school about Stanley's book that I was
telling you before, and so when I went when I
met him, I gave it to him and he read
it finally, and he gave me a B plus and
threw it on the ground said, man, pick up your saxophone.
That was almost the end of my writing view. So
I kind of got discouraged at that point, you know, so,
but yeah, anyway, anyway, I'm close to the writers is

(01:02:27):
what I can say. Michael Nash and Carrie Williams and
TODs Mahall and Bob Were and myself we've been we've
been working on this, uh, this musical for Satul Page
for many years now. We're finally ready. The last time
we tried to bring it out, this other play called

(01:02:48):
Damn Yankees came up. That was about thirty years ago,
nearly thirty years ago. So I think we've revised it
and we're about to make another running at it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Speaking of Bob, where can you talk about your foraise
into other genres?

Speaker 5 (01:03:11):
Like knowing that you played with the Grateful Dead?

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
I mean, of course there's the Bay Area connection that
you two have.

Speaker 5 (01:03:17):
How long have you been playing with you?

Speaker 4 (01:03:18):
It kind of start it kind of started with the
satul Page thing project, it kind of and Michael Nash
is the one that brought me into it. They gave
me a grant and I did a record of Grateful
Dead music with my octet. I don't know if you
remember that, but it came out and it was kind
of popularized their songs and they had a big laugh
about it, and Uh I did a gig out at

(01:03:42):
the at the film More Feel More West, and UH
and Bob were and Feel Less sat in with me,
and at the last minute it was completely sold out.
So anytime they played with me, and then I played
with him and Yoshi's one time they showed up and
was completely so oh okay. So yeah, I mean, anytime

(01:04:02):
anything with the Grateful Dead come up. There's there's so
many dead heads in this world. I mean, I've played
a wedding one time. Some Grateful Dead fans that just
come to me and they put their rings on their
toes and it was fantastic, and they paid some money.
It was fantastic. It was fantastic. It was a lot

(01:04:23):
of money. It was great. It was out of Martha's vineyard. Yeah,
it was very nice. You know, so these little I've
never really got paid to play with the Grateful Dead.
But things come in different packages, you know, the things
from the Dead, they come in other farms.

Speaker 6 (01:04:39):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
You know, I'll get called with this and called. But
I just did a gig in Washington. Some people that
knew the Dead played one for Jerry Man. You know.
It's always like that. Keeps on giving.

Speaker 3 (01:04:50):
Yeah, okay, so you've done what's the name of the project,
sun Moon is him and it was two musicians right now,
it's just well, it's just it's two instruments, but it's
just David.

Speaker 8 (01:05:02):
It's he's playing tenor sacks pieces and bass clarinet pieces.

Speaker 5 (01:05:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:07):
Okay, So when Steve first told me that you were
doing a solo record, how does one plan for that, like,
because you've done solo shows by yourself before, correct.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
Yeah, I've made five solo albums.

Speaker 5 (01:05:21):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:05:23):
Well, one time in seventy eight, I went to Paris
at the time into Zaki Shange my first color Girls.

Speaker 5 (01:05:34):
You said that was your first wife.

Speaker 4 (01:05:36):
What wait?

Speaker 5 (01:05:39):
You were there pre colored Girls?

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Wow?

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
What how come I didn't know this?

Speaker 7 (01:05:44):
I didn't, Sorry, David, I didn't meant surprise.

Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
No, No, that's not pre colored Girls. That's seventy seven okay, right,
a little bit anyway, anyway, mingus, his mom was my
second wife, okay, and Francesca's is my fourth wife. Roman
and Valerie in Paris was my third wife.

Speaker 5 (01:06:10):
Got it?

Speaker 4 (01:06:11):
Okay? So we were doing When the Mississippi Meets the Amazon.
I had done music for it in Tasaki, Jessica Haggard
Dorn and to Lannie Davis. They dressed up like Billy
Holliday with gardenias and they read the poetry where the
Mississippi meets the Amazon. And it was at the Public Theater.

(01:06:33):
It was just after we had done Photo a Photograph,
which I also wrote the music for, and I had
I left that show. A lot of people in the
show on the band uh J. Hogard was in the band,
Michael Gregor Jackson was in the band. Uh from Owing

(01:06:54):
a Cloth was in the band. A lot of good people.
And anyway, I left the show because me and in
Tazaki we were married three months. Oh wow, but we
had we had the marriage of the century artist marriage
of the Century in Berkeley, California, at a place called Mapenzi.

(01:07:15):
And the marriage didn't last long. We went to Milwa
for the honeymoon. Yeah. So so that was during a
time you know, irector Porsche and all kind of shit.
Oh shit, you know, I mean it was it was
another time, you know. But I went to Paris and
I did a concert at the theater move Start, and

(01:07:38):
I did two nights solo there. And out of those
two nights solo, we made a record. We sold one
to Callac Records in London, the Red Records in Italy
and Marge Records in Paris. So that was my first
three solo albums, Organic Xophone, Conceptual Saxophone and Surreal Saxophone.

(01:08:06):
And then I did two other solo albums in Florence,
This Guy check on Mino, Buyum one and Buyum two
those on. That makes five solo records that I made,
and then this is yours is the sixth.

Speaker 8 (01:08:23):
So doing a solo record or playing a gig solo,
is that the ultimate freedom? Or is it better to
have others to bounce around and bounce off?

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
When I was younger, I used to set up three
microphones on the stage, one over here, one in the
middle stage and one here and I come out and
I would play three different personalities at each microphone. I
did this in London at the Bracknow Festival one time,
and I played in front of the Revolutionary Ensemble with

(01:08:57):
Leroy Jenkins and those guys, those guys and uh On
that Coleman played after us and uh I have to
say I got house, but but it was it was,
And I don't know how the concept of using the
three personalities and three ways of playing the saxophone. The

(01:09:20):
center stage, I only played like ballasts. I was like that,
you know. On the right, I played another kind of way.
Over here, I played a different way. And then finally
as a constant, and I would move and I was
much younger then, and I had these crape shoes and
I could move kind of like basketball kind of moves.
It was more physical than it is now. I enjoyed

(01:09:42):
it better then than I do now. I don't really
like to play solo now. But I'm not that athlete
because I used to do the catalon, you know, so,
and I won the strength strength competition in the whole area.
I was you mean, for real, you did the cathalon. Okay, yeah,
I mean it was you know, I was good at
sports up until a certain point. Then guys got big,

(01:10:05):
all right, But I was really big when I was young,
So i'd say up until fifteen. I probably was pretty good.
After leads sixteen, but then you know, music took over,
and so yeah, solo concert is a physical act for me.
I mean, I've seen other people play I'm not going
to say any names. I've seen other people play solo,

(01:10:27):
and it's just like boring, you know, I mean it
just like especially if it's one of those head trips.
You know, for me, if you're going to play solo,
you got to blow the hell out of it. You
can't just be like dude, I didn't wait like Chicago musicians.
Woo yeah. I gotta tell a joke somewhere in there.

Speaker 6 (01:10:48):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:10:49):
You're the most intense soulo is I've ever seen.

Speaker 4 (01:10:53):
So I just can't. I can't watch it. If I
can't watch it, how am I going to do it?
You know, I can't sit and watch like I'm in Europe.
I see guys play solo in Europeans, Black guys, different people.
They got this heady approaches, intellectual and I say, it's

(01:11:14):
only one guy up there. Why am I waiting for
a note to come? I don't get it.

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
You know.

Speaker 8 (01:11:22):
It was interesting when we made this record. He had
some song ideas and some songs that already existed, but
a lot of it, most of it is improvised. He
asked me name something for me to play about, to
write on the spot about. Just for example. One of
the songs called Garcia because we mentioned Jerry Garcia, and

(01:11:44):
then he played for fifteen minutes expressing himself about his
experiences with Jerry and things like along those along those lines.
So it's fascinating to watch somebody try to attempt that
a solo experience, whether it's on stage or in a recording.

Speaker 5 (01:12:03):
So daring, you know.

Speaker 8 (01:12:04):
So can you be more exposed really or you know too,
to just show your creativity on when you're all by yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
I don't mind that, you know. I work sometimes with
this with this artist named nasci Ostrowski. She lives up
in the Court, New York. And we did we did
a duet concert, you know, with a with an action painter.
And I've done a few in Europe, you know, one
with the with with this brother from Guadeloupe. Very interesting

(01:12:41):
to do action, I mean the action you know, musicians.
I think we're supposed to be some kind of a
representatives of our time. We're supposed to be able to,
not not that we're sages, are high level gurus or
anything like that, but we should be able to, Like

(01:13:02):
a good painter, we should be able to interpret what's
happening politically, are socially around us. We should be able to.
I mean there's there's many issues. I mean this is
this is what ques Love does. He's doing that, but
maybe they could hear it in certain kind of improvisations.

Speaker 8 (01:13:19):
So we got to see him improvise on his own,
and then we got to see him improvise with two
other people, You and Ray Angry. The most amazing thing
was watching either you or Ray or David come up
with an idea and then hear the response from the
other improv improvising me.

Speaker 4 (01:13:37):
It was very difficult too, because to try to keep
a melodic motif going and making it up on the
spot almost was sometimes doing that recording. I felt like
I had to write melodies as I was improvising something

(01:13:58):
that people could hold on too, because I'm really a
true believer of the song for him, even though people
categorize my music as avant garde, but what I am
is a person who's truly into the song for him.
Melody is very important to me. And what they were
throwing at me, what quest Love was throwing at me,

(01:14:19):
it wasn't easy. I mean, I'm trying to translate his
rhythms and then I play something, and then Ray would
do something, and then it was like a triangle that
was happening. I was just trying to keep up with
what they were throwing me too, because it was some
of a lot of fastballs and curveballs.

Speaker 5 (01:14:37):
Meanwhile, I'm trying to just I.

Speaker 7 (01:14:40):
Was just thinking. I was like, a meir, how did
you go in thinking approaching that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
I mean, look, Steve convinced me to leave the farm.
It was still like mid quarantine.

Speaker 5 (01:14:53):
Right, like, or at least yeah, towards the end, but yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
It was like the end of it, but still like
I mean that in the air, and then like to
even be creative in that time period, which is I
think the real reason why I agreed to do it.
I think I would have invented an excuse to get
out of it, because I think there's a point where
maybe after two thousand and four, two thousand and five,

(01:15:18):
I really just stopped trying to chase the dragon of
you know, virtuoso musician and that sort of thing. And
so normally I would have said no to that, but
I mean, you caught me right in a position where
it was like, all right, well.

Speaker 8 (01:15:35):
I think everybody was challenged.

Speaker 5 (01:15:36):
Yeah, I wanted to get out the house and you know,
just have fun.

Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
So I was like, all right, well, let me make
a fool of myself in front of David is going
to take me serious?

Speaker 5 (01:15:46):
Then I know it's good and actually you know it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:49):
Was good, clean fun, believe me. But it was a
work too.

Speaker 3 (01:15:55):
I would love to do it again. We part of
me also wants to take it live, so you know
that would.

Speaker 4 (01:15:59):
Be that I was wondering if y'a would ever do that.
I would be fantastic.

Speaker 8 (01:16:02):
Well, we're supposed to do some Blue Note shows when
the physical product comes in the next few months.

Speaker 5 (01:16:08):
Well, there we have it. I guess my last question
to you before we wrap is what is the future
of jazz now?

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
When people say that, but for you, like, are there
any bucket list projects that you'd love to get into,
you know while you're still active?

Speaker 4 (01:16:30):
Well, I really would like to do an opera, if
not the Pushkin. See the thing about the Pushkin and
the whole thing about the war in Ukraine and kind
of put a damper on it for the moment. But
when I was looking toward Pushkin, I was looking towards

(01:16:54):
creating another mulatto hero for black people, somebody who who
was a true poet and uh he was part black,
so anyway, but that and the satul page I would
like to complete, and I have many aspirations if I

(01:17:18):
were to be able to get some grants. I like
to write for larger ensembles, certainly, and when I say large,
I mean larger than octet. I like to write for
I have some orchestra music, and I'd like to.

Speaker 8 (01:17:32):
We can't afford an orchestra at my label, but we
can keep you on solo records anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
I'll be happy just to play with my quartet for
the next couple of years and uh see them grow,
uh get ready for this new album that's gonna come out,
and be on tour with that and uh ca he
else the bar and duet and play with you guys.
Fantastic with you, and that would be a dream.

Speaker 5 (01:18:02):
Well, thank you man.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
It was a dream plan with you, and you know
I am not. Even though I'm world famous for exaggerating
and statements, I still maintain that you are one of
the greatest living musicians. And I appreciate you for sitting
talking to us.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
David Murray, Lads and jentlemen, thank you for listening to
Quest Love Supreme hosted by Quest Love Thompson. Why You
Saint Clair Coleman, Sugar Steve Mandell an unpaid Bill Sherman.
Executive producers are Near Quest Love, Thompson, Sean.

Speaker 5 (01:18:46):
Che Brian Calhoun.

Speaker 1 (01:18:49):
Produced by Britney Benjamin Cousin, Jake Payne, Eliah Saint Clayton,
edited by Alex Conroy. Produced by iHeart by Noel Brown.
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

(01:19:10):
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.