David Murray Q &A
Performers
Salim Washington
See BioSalim Washington is a composer and multi instrumentalist, playing tenor sax, flute, oboe and bass clarinet. He has played and recorded with many of the luminaries of the art form, and has been featured in festivals and other venues throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Latin America.
Washington has combined a life in music with a life of the mind, and is a scholar of black music and culture, having written several articles and co-written with Farah Jasmine Griffin Clawing at the Limits of Cool, a book about the collaboration between Miles Davis and John Coltrane. He currently serves as professor of Global Jazz Studies and Music at UCLA.
He works to combine his artistry and pedagogy with his political conviction that we must work to improve our society with greater justice for all.
Steven Loza
See BioSteven Loza is a professor of ethnomusicology at UCLA, where he has been on the faculty for thirty-four years, and also served as professor of music at the University of New Mexico, where he formerly directed the Arts of the Americas Institute. He has served as chair of the Department of Ethnomusicology and is currently chair of the Global Jazz Studies Interdepartmental Program, in addition to serving as director of the UCLA Center for Latino Arts. He has conducted extensive research in Mexico, the Chicano/Latino U.S., Cuba, among other areas, and has lectured and read papers throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. He has been the recipient of Fulbright and Ford Foundation grants among numerous others, and served on the national screening and voting committees of the Grammy Awards for many years. Aside from UCLA and the University of New Mexico, he has taught at the University of Chile, Kanda University of International Studies in Japan, and the Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico City.
Program Notes
Jazz saxophone great David Murray will be featured in a Q & A with Global Jazz Studies faculty members Steven Loza and Salim Washington.
Since he arrived in NY in 1975, David Murray established himself as one of the prominent saxophone players and leaders of jazz. He has released over 200 albums under his own name, working with the likes of Max Roach, Randy Weston, Pharoah Sanders, McCoy Tyner, Taj Mahal, Mal Waldron, Amiri Baraka, Jerry Garcia, Doudou N’daye Rose, Cassandra Wilson, Jason Moran, Macy Gray, Omara Portuando, Saul Williams, Vijay Iyer, Quest Love, Black Thought, and Gregory Porter to name a few. He is also a founding member of the groundbreaking World Saxophone Quartet which toured and recorded for 40 years.
As well as being a well-known bandleader, he is a noteworthy composer and arranger providing memorable melodies and harmonies. His approach to improvisation is instantly recognizable. Even in its freest flights, he acknowledges the gravity of a tradition he honors more than most, combining all the influences he grew out of: gospel, jazz, free/avant-garde jazz, rhythm’n blues, R&B and, in his associations with writers, poetry. The great Cecil Taylor compared him to his greatest predecessors who had signature sounds: “You stick your ear in the door, you know it’s David!”
David Murray goes down as a worthy successor for some of the biggest names in jazz, and he is now contributing to the rise of many young talents acclaimed by the critics. His new quartet album will be released in May 2024: Luke Stewart on bass, Marta Sanchez on the piano, and Russell Carter on drums!
“David Murray, the master saxophonist who has reconciled the whole history of jazz tenor, from swing to free, during a wildly prolific career.” NYTimes
“Several of his recordings are among the benchmark achievements in the postmodern era and others attest to a consistency that is rare in any era […] No musician personifies better than David Murray the dilemma of reconciling jazz’s family values and the claims of autonomy.” Gary Giddins