Steven A. Cerra
“The first time I heard Mark Murphy was at a session in a jazz club in Los Angeles. He was singing with just a rhythm section, and without benefit of rehearsal, special arrangement or a supporting brass section. He made it very obvious that he is one of the most positive musical personalities on the scene today. He is not only startlingly original and inventive, but he also possesses that polished vocal technique needed to carry out his ideas and variations. Mark is not only a singer, but a real vocal musician. And, gratifyingly enough, he’s become a real inside favorite with many of the more discerning people in the entertainment business.” - Bill Holman, tenor saxophonist, bandleader, arranger-composer
“Murphy long ago resigned himself to the idea that he would never be a household name. Yet his is one of the most consistently prolific and rewarding careers in modern music.”
“There is no one better at taking a familiar or even unfamiliar old song and turning it inside out, spilling its guts and finding the feeling underneath,”
“Murphy does not abstract and skewer a song merely for the sake of being different, but to get at its inner meaning. By making you think differently about a song you’ve heard before, he makes it relevant and meaningful all over again.” - Will Friedwald, A Biographical Guide to the Great Jazz and Pop Singers.
“You find out who you are from improvisation,” Mr. Murphy said in 1997, describing his music and, in a larger sense, his life. “You throw away what’s not needed and get to what’s real.”
“Every musician that has ever worked with Mark confirms that he has remarkable time. Mark does stunning things with phrasing. His range has increased enormously — it goes from falsetto (in which he can do beautiful trumpet-like shakes) down to a rich baritone. His control permits him to sing long lines. He works his way through chord changes like a horn player without forgetting that his instrument is the voice.” - Gene Lees
“It is a well known fact, that the human voice is the most difficult and most complicated musical instrument. After listening to MARK MURPHY with the above mentioned statement in the back of your mind, you will agree that you have just heard one of the greatest instrumentalists of our time. What always strikes me about him, is his voice control and the way he builds his phrases". - Joop De Roo, Head of Entertainment, Radio and Television, Hilversum, The Netherlands
“His sure and swinging time, his musical and ever-inventive phrasing and that certain quality of sound and feeling combined with time and taste that to me spell Jazz.” - Dan Morgenstern
I bought Mark Murphy’s 1959 Capitol LP This Could Be The Start of Something (Big) [T-1177] without ever hearing him sing a note.
I bought it because the arrangements were by Bill Holman and the band playing them featured a bunch of my favorite West Coast Jazz musicians including Pete and Conte Candoli, Richie Kamuca and a rhythm section of Jimmy Rowles, Joe Mondragon and Mel Lewis.
But, in time, I came to treasure it for another reason and that reason was Mark Murphy’s singing. Man, could that guy make a song his own.
Two bars and you knew it was him.
Mark was the vocal personification of hip, slick and cool.
He reminded me of an extrovert Bobby Troup because they both had this uncanny ability to effortlessly get inside a lyric and to tell you a story with the voice rather than a horn as their instrument.
read more: http://jazzprofiles.blogspot.com.br/2015/10/mark-murphy-1932-2015-rip.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+JazzProfiles+(Jazz+Profiles)
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