1990 · Album
Smoke
Recorded October 6, 1989 · FMP/Free Music Production · Location: FMP-Studios, Berlin
Two Musicians Meeting in Berlin Silence
Schlippenbach abdicates his normal responsibilities as a leader and becomes a collaborator.
On October 6, 1989, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Sunny Murray walked into FMP-Studios in Berlin to record together for the first time. No prior arrangements, no rehearsals—just two musicians from different continents and different eras of free jazz meeting in a room to see what would happen. The result, released the following year as Smoke (1990), captures that exact moment of discovery: two players feeling each other out, taking turns, testing boundaries, neither one dominant.
Schlippenbach had spent decades leading his own ensembles and setting the terms of his music. Here he steps back. Murray, a drummer who'd never really been anyone's sideman, takes the initiative. The interplay feels genuinely spontaneous—not scripted, not searching for a concept. Just response and counter-response. AllMusic reviewer Thom Jurek heard it as an act of real musical courage, writing that the album reveals "the inherent musical courage it takes to play freely with another musician you have never encountered." He noted how Murray "turns his rhythmic chops on in such a way that the pianist cannot help but to respond in a like manner."
This isn't a peak moment in either musician's catalog—it's a sidestep, a one-off encounter captured on tape. But it works precisely because it doesn't try to be anything else. The session itself becomes the content. No grand statement, no legacy-building. Just two experienced players reminding themselves and each other why they still wanted to play.
Who's playing
Sunny Murraydrums
Where next?
More by Sunny Murray
Hommage to Africa 1970
♫
Big Chief 1969
13# Steps on Glass 1995
An Even Break (Never Give A Sucker) 1970
The musicians on this record
Their own records, close in time
