Sunny Murray & Sabir Mateen

Thursday, October 9, 2003

Bezanson Recital Hall 8pm   
$5 Students / $12 General

Known for revolutionizing the role of the trap drums in jazz, Sunny Murray's influence on the last thirty-five years of improvised music cannot be overestimated. Murray was an indispensable force in the early defining moments of free-jazz working with Archie Sheep, Ornette Coleman, and Don Cherry, among countless others. "Murray still loves the idea of keeping a pulse you can time eggs by," writes Richard Cook in Jazziz. "He is as strong and gracious as Art Blakey, and listening to him affords a lot of the same satisfaction as hearing Bu." Sabir Mateen, a long-time collaborator of Murray's, will be performing on the reeds. Mateen began playing with Horace Tapscott's Pan African People's Arkestra almost three decades ago in Los Angeles and has traveled the world with numerous jazz masters. The duo's 1998 recording of We are Not the Opera, which was recorded in the Amherst area, was voted as one of the best jazz releases of 1999 by Wire Magazine.