BYG Actuel 03: Sunny Murray - Hommage to Africa

There are probably arguments that could be made against this claim, but Sunny Murray is free jazz’s first truly free drummer. Instead of simply keeping time, Murray’s playing is purely expressionistic, pouring his entire being into a cacophony of textural percussion. Considering his place in the free jazz pantheon, it is unsurprising that he cut his teeth in the Cecil Taylor Unit and then in the Albert Ayler Trio and Quartet, three of the most important groups in free jazz’s development. While his playing on albums by these groups, and especially on the Albert Ayler Trio’s fiery Ghosts, is rightfully lauded by fans and critics, his work as a bandleader is too often overlooked. He recorded two great ESP-Disks—1965’s Sunny’s Time Now and 1966’s Sunny Murray—while still a member of Ayler’s band—along with the transitional Big Chief for EMI/Pathe in 1968 between his stint with Ayler and Archie Shepp’s invitation to join him at the Panafrican Festival at the start of the next summer. While Murray’s first three albums as leader are very good, Murray’s voice is still very much tied to his work with Ayler. Murray’s time with Shepp and his experiences recording for BYG Actuel freed him of these stylistic constraints and allowed him to find his own voice as a writer.

BYG Actuel 01: Don Cherry - "Mu" First Part

If the Festival Actuel is any indication, the founders of BYG intended their Actuel imprint and their brand as a whole to represent forward-thinking global music in any genre, with free jazz being the particular focus. Had financial mismanagement and the insane overreaching that came with holding such a gigantic festival so soon after the label’s founding not tanked BYG, it is not unreasonable to believe that BYG Actuel could have become one of the avant-grade musical leaders on the European continent. With these lofty ambitions, the first Actuel release had to set the tone and the standard of quality for the albums ahead and draw attention to the brand new subsidiary label. A minor public relations coup resulting from signing an established artist was certainly a helpful bonus as well. The label got all of this with “Mu” First Part, the first of two duo albums by Ornette Coleman Quartet alums Don Cherry and Ed Blackwell.

BYG Actuel 00: Jazzactuel Intro

ESP-Disk is the best and most important free jazz label of all time. While larger labels like Atlantic, Blue Note and Impulse! dabbled in the fresh musical territory that was free jazz in the mid-sixties, ESP-Disk was the first record company to really devote itself to this music.[1] Albert Ayler, Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra, Patty Waters, Milford Graves, Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman, Henry Grimes, Frank Wright, Gato Barbieri, and the New York Art Quartet all put out some of their defining material on the label. Artists maintained complete artistic control of their ESP discs, making it one of the best outlets for avant-garde musicians in spite of the label’s spotty history of actually paying its artists.

Other great labels followed ESP-Disk’s example in the late sixties and into the seventies. India Navigation, Flying Dutchman, Delmark, and Black Saint cropped up in the states to handle the rapidly multiplying number of free players in a musical environment that was openly hostile toward free jazz. In Europe musicians started their own labels, including FMP and Incus, to release their radical explorations of free improvisation’s outer edges.