Roswell Rudd Setting new Standards ....

Roswell Rudd Setting new Standards with his new CD TROMBONE FOR LOVERS - a loving glance back to the melodies that forever lived on inside him - down melody land with stellar performances by John Medeski, Bob Dorough, Michael Doucet, Steven Bernstein, Gary Lucas, Fay Victor, Aaron Commes, Richard Hammond, Heather Masse, the NYC Labor Chorus with Reggie Bennett. Produced by Ivan Rubenstein-Gillis with Roswell. To be released in October 2013 on Sunnyside.
Read more: http://www.roswellrudd.com/docs/main/frame.htm

The Sunny Murray Interview

12/16/12 - Jason Weiss

The mother lode for devotees of the jazz avant-garde and outré music in general, Jason Weiss’Always in Trouble: An Oral History of ESP-Disk’, the Most Outrageous Record Label in America is a collection of incisive Q&As with the principals and players behind the game-changing company founded by Bernard Stollman in 1964. Sonny Simmons, Roswell Rudd, Burton Greene, Milford Graves, Sirone and many other label-associated greats are interviewed, in addition to ESP admirers, like Roscoe Mitchell and Ken Vandermark, and musicians who’ve recorded for the label in recent years, such as Joe Morris.

But the most and best material comes from Stollman himself (who takes a beating throughout the other conversations, from artists still waiting for royalties). With impressively detailed recall, Stollman discusses sessions, artists, deals and conspiracies, and reveals tales that have nothing to do with free jazz but are fascinating nonetheless. Like the music he purveyed, Stollman’s stories are full of strangeness as well as lyricism. Following this issue’s drum theme, we present Weiss’ July 2009 interview with Sunny Murray. —EVAN HAGA

A pioneer of free-jazz drumming, Sunny Murray first became known from Cecil Taylor’s seminal groups of the early 1960s, which led directly to his tenure as Albert Ayler’s drummer throughout 1964-65, appearing on all of Ayler’s original ESP-Disk’ recordings. At the end of ’65, he made his first record as a leader, Sonny’s Time Now (for the fledgling Jihad label founded by LeRoi Jones, now Amiri Baraka), with Ayler and Don Cherry in the group playing Murray’s compositions. 

He then led a date for ESP on July 23, 1967, Sunny Murray, where his quintet included bassist Alan Silva, trumpeter Jacques Coursil and alto saxophonists Byard Lancaster and Jack Graham. He often led his own groups after that, and in 1968 went to Paris for a few years. There he recorded various albums under his own name, for BYG and other labels, and played on dates by Archie Shepp, Dave Burrell and François Tusques; he also played the Pan-African festival in Algiers and the festival in Amougies.
Also see: Essential Sunny Murray recordings.

Read more: http://jazztimes.com/articles/62690-the-sunny-murray-interview

Rudd graduated from Yale University where he had played.....

Rudd graduated from Yale University where he had played with Eli's Chosen Six, a dixieland band of Yale students that Rudd joined in the mid-'50s. The sextet played the boisterous trad-jazz style of the day and recorded two albums, including one for Columbia. His landmark collaborations with Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, John Tchicai and Steve Lacy grew out of the lessons learned while playing rags and stomps for drunken college kids in Connecticut.

Rudd later taught ethnomusicology at Bard College and the University of Maine. On and off for a period of three decades, Roswell Rudd assisted Alan Lomax with his world music song style; (Cantometrics) and Global Jukebox projects and the wealth of information on the music of this planet that he absorbed inspired him to collaborate beyond the periphery jazz or even of western music.

In the 1960s, Rudd participated in key free jazz recordings. Highlights include work with the New York Art Quartet; on the soundtrack recording for Michael Snow's 1964 film New York Eye and Ear Control; Michael Mantler & Carla Bley's 1968 Jazz Composer's Orchestra - Communications featuring Cecil Taylor; and collaborations with Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell and Gato Barbieri. A major factor in Rudd's career has been his lifelong friendships with saxophonists Archie Shepp and Steve Lacy -- and his numerous recordings and performances of the music of Thelonious Monk with Lacy.

Rudd has been a frequent visitor to the African nation of Mali, performing and recording with Malian musicians. His 2001 CD MALIcool, a cross-cultural collaboration with kora player Toumani Diabaté and other Malian musicians represented the first time the trombone had been featured in a recording of Malian traditional music.

In 2004 he brought his Trombone Shout Band to perform at the 4th Festival au Désert in Essakane, Tombouctou Region, Mali. In 2005 he extended his reach even further, recording a CD with the Mongolian Buryat Band, a traditional music group of musicians from Mongolia and Buryatia, entitled Blue Mongol. More recently he has recorded with Hispanic musicians from New York City. Rudd conducts master classes and workshops both in the United States and around the world.

He co-leads an ensemble with Archie Shepp, as well as touring with MALIcool, the Mongolian Buryat Band, as well as being a featured guest with a myriad of musicians, not always "jazz" musicians.

Awards and honors
In 2000, Rudd was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in composition.
In 2003, 2004, and 2005 he was voted Trombonist of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association.
His 1999, album Monk's Dream was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance Male, as well as a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album.
52nd Annual Down Beat magazine Critic’s Poll – one of the best of 2003
In 2003, One of the 10 best – Chris Porter, Washington City Paper
In 2002, THE CODA TOP TEN - Selected by Duck Baker

Roswell Rudd....

"...a trombonist of such sweeping power and majesty that he transcends all styles." - John Wilson, The New York Times
"In his sure hands this rather neglected instrument seems to take on a new life." - Braad Thomsen, Politiken, Copenhagen
"Rudd gets more trombone out of his instrument than any colleague, past or present." - Whitney Balliet, New Yorker Magazine
"The key transitional figure of the '60's was Rudd...in his own masterful album, Everywhere, he demonstrates a revitalization of expressive techniques and dynamic sensitivity." - Gary Giddins, Village Voice
"Rudd extracts sounds from the trombone that go back to New Orleans and further ahead than anyone has yet reached." - Nat Hentoff, Cosmopolitan
"You blow in this end of the trombone and sound comes out the other end and disrupts the cosmos." - Roswell Rudd


Roswell Rudd, trombone;
Sunny Kim, vocals;
Lafayette Harris, piano;
Brad Jones, bass