[B]Sunny Murray Interview by Dan Warburton, November 3, 2000
(accessed 2010-07-12)
Talking of other drummers, you’ve often been compared (justly or not) to Rashied Ali. How do you feel about that?
When I came to New York from Philly, Rashied said “I’m gonna follow you.” In 1965, I’m sitting in front my house and a car pulls up and it’s Rashied with Sonny Johnson, the bass player. “I’M HERE, MURRAY!” His brother Muhammad, who had a more profound talent – not technically, but feeling-wise – was still in Philly. Muhammad was my best friend, and the reason I met Rashied. Rashied, he drove me crazy, he followed me around New York, man. Followed me to my friends‘ houses… I had friends who refused to buzz him in, he’d buzz and say, “Rashied, I’m a friend of Sunny…” He just wanted to copy what I was doing. Rashied’s lucky, he married a rich woman. Got a million dollar pad in SoHo, a $350,000 studio in his basement. He shows me all this stuff, I say “Beautiful, ‚Shied, that’s nice.”
Didn’t he help his brother out a bit? Muhammad was really suffering at the end…*
Like Billie Holiday say, “Help yourself, but don’t take too much…”
Why do think Rashied ended up getting the gig with John?
I’ll tell you the truth – John wanted somebody to play next to Elvin, and I turned him down. I had played with John three times in 1964, and the closest Elvin came to losing his job was me taking it. Buzz buzz the grapevine buzz buzz Sunny Murray’s gonna be playing with John… At that period Elvin was getting high and shit, he’d get off the bandstand and his first wife – big tall white chick, real vampire junky – she’d be at the door… “Baby c’mon here…” And Jimmy Garrison saying “Motherfucker, you can’t just go…” John asked me to sit in that first time because Elvin was arguing with Jimmy – Albert was with me – John came over quietly and said, “Sunny, how you doing? Would you like to play?” But Elvin was playing so great that night, it froze me in my tracks. After he jumped and ran Albert said “You still wanna do this?” I said, “Yeah…” And we played, man. McCoy sounded different, Jimmy was singing with me… it worked. Elvin came back and was sitting there with a drink and he was enjoying himself! I came off the stand and we had a drink together and we became buddies. He calls me Big Man ever since. I took John to a little festival Archie had put together at the Dome on St. Mark’s Place, and there Milford was playing, Roger Black was playing and Rashied was playing… John said, “You wanna play some, Sunny?” I said, “I’m gonna show you something John about acoustics.” Roger Blank let me on his drums while Milford and Rashied were still playing, and when I started you couldn’t hear nobody but me. I was using what Helmholtz calls “sound displacement”… a big sound displaces a small sound, like that story I told you about the siren. Later I told John “Elvin never let nobody play with you but me, and I’m never gonna lose the friendship I have with him… You’re gonna make him hate me.” John sat there quietly and said, “Sunny, I hear a thousand rhythms…” Cecil was there, Leroi Jones was there and Jean Phillips was there when he offered me the job, if there’s anybody out there don’t believe me, they were there.
Rashied Ali Interview, von Hank Shteamer
Published: March 31, 2003
(accessed 2010-07-12)
AAJ: You’ve returned to the duet format throughout your career.
RA: I’ve dubbed myself ‚The Duet Drummer.‘ I just remember even before Coltrane or any of that, I’ve always played with just a saxophonist or a pianist, whoever was available. I love playing with rhythm sections; I do. But it was really more open playing just with another instrument- a drummer, whatever. And I’ve been doing that all my life just about.
And when I did Interstellar Space with Coltrane, that really put it on the map, but if you go back and listen to some of my records before Trane – with Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, Albert Ayler, Cal Massey, just a lot of different people ‚ you would hear me playing duets with Marion on some cuts, duets with Alan Shorter on some cuts, or duets with Archie Shepp. In fact, Archie Shepp and I, we played duets for almost six months before I went with Coltrane.
That concept came actually from listening to Trane because I first heard Trane play duets with Philly Joe Jones back in the fifties, and then I heard him play with Elvin Jones all the time, just duets. The whole band would split, and [leave] just the drummer and the saxophone. So that kind of got me up on that really.
So by the time I got to play duets with Trane, I was definitely ready for it. And since, I think I have more duo records than any drummer out. That’s been one of my fortes, although I love playing with a rhythm section.
AAJ: How did the idea for Interstellar Space come about?
RA: I didn’t have a clue what was happening. John told me that we were going to be going in to the studio, and I said, ‚Cool.‘ And I went in there, and I was setting up, and I didn’t see Jimmy, I didn’t see Alice; I didn’t see nobody else. And I was like, ‚Where’s everybody else?‘ and he said, ‚It’s just going to be you and me.‘ And I went, ‚Oh!‘
So everything was completely spontaneous except for at times I would ask him to give me some kind of clue as to what was happening, you know like, ‚Is this going to be slow like a ballad?‘ or, ‚Is this going to be in a certain time like 3/4 or 4/4? Is it going to be fast? Is it going to be slow?‘ Because you know, he would just ring the bells, pick up his horn and start playing.
And I’d been playing with him not that long anyways, and I’m like, ‚What the fuck?‘ And you know I would get in there, and I would play, and he would go, ‚How do you like that?‘ and I would say, ‚Well, I wasn’t quite prepared for it.‘ And he’d say, ‚Well, you want to do it again?‘ and I’d say, ‚Yeah, let’s do it again.‘
There’s probably some other takes of that stuff because we did a few things twice, but [John] didn’t really like to do that. But he saw I was in such agony that he would do that for me; that’s the kind of cat he was.
And so, that record came about like that. Meditations was like that too, actually. That’s why I always wanted a chance to do [Interstellar Space] again at some point, but it’s pretty hard to do it without [John], you know?
But I did Meditations again; I recorded that again [with Prima Materia, Ali’s group featuring saxophonists Louie Belogenis and Allan Chase]. That turned out ok. Still, I wasn’t ready for the original Meditations, but I like the original Meditations better than mine.
AAJ: So, you had never heard the music on Interstellar Space before you recorded it?
RA: No; first time meeting it, first time playing it, and a lot of times it was a first take thing, and then I never heard it again until like twenty-five or thirty years later when they put it out.
AAJ: Did you ever play live duets with Trane?
RA: Well, no, but in the songs sometimes everybody would lay out and just John and I would play for a little bit, and then the rest of the band would come back in. And then on some tunes like ‚Ogunde‘ and some other tunes, the whole band was playing, and then they would all just lay out, and then John and I would go and solo and play, and then the whole band would come back in to close it. So it was that kind of duo thing I did with him before.
But, like I was saying, I was pretty much versed into duos because that was one of my fortes, and it still is very much. I really do dig playing with a duo because I have a lot of freedom, and when I get with a good cat who really knows what’s happening up there with the changes and everything, it works out really good.
[…]
RA: […] That’s how I get it, man. I can play a time, and then I can just take that time and turn it into nothing. The time will still be there, but you won’t hear it; you can feel it. I can demonstrate that for you. I can do it right now… [Ali sits down at drums and demonstrates- What a treat!]
And that’s what John called ‚multi-directional rhythms. He named it; he told me, ‚Rashied, what you’re playing is multi-directional rhythms.‘ That’s what he put on it, so I just left it there. I guess it means everything going on at once. He said, ‚I can pick whatever I want to; I can play as slow as I want, or as fast as I want on the rhythm that you’re playing.‘ And that was some heavy shit when he told me that…
That’s the only reason I was [with Coltrane], man. I used to be playing gigs, and Coltrane used to be in the audience watching me. I was playing with Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Marion Brown, Chris Capers, George Coleman ‚ whoever it was I was playing sessions with. And I would look out sometimes in the audience, and Albert would go, [whispers] ‚Hey man, Coltrane!‘ So he used to scope us out.
But that’s not it either. I used to go to his gig and beg, and he’d let me sit in with him; I sat in with the quartet. They had this place, it used to be called the Half Note, it was on Hudson and Spring, and Trane used to play there- if he was off he’d play there for a month, two months, and I would go over there and sit down on the bandstand … ask them to let me play every day. But I came in there one day when Elvin [Jones] wasn’t there, and everybody wanted to play, and [John] said, ‚Come on, man,‘ and that started it. After that, I was playing all the time. I was sitting in on Elvin’s drums, and pretty soon I started working with Elvin, two drummers.
But from the beginning, I would just go over there and sit in and just play with the band. And other people would sit in too. I’d bring people like Pharaoh [Sanders]; we’d come together, and we’d both sit in with Trane. And then [John] started changing his band around.
[Playing in tandem with Elvin Jones] was an incredible experience, man; I’ll never forget that. Although, it was kind of rough at first, but, whew, man, that was something. I learned a lot from it. That was great. Too bad it didn’t last long, but it lasted long enough for me to understand what it was all about.
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