1998 · Album
We Are Not At The Opera
Recorded June 1998, Unitarian Meetinghouse, Amherst, Massachusetts · Eremite Records · Personnel: [Sunny Murray] (drums), [Sabir Mateen] (saxophone)
Polyrhythm and Playfulness at the Edge
Murray creates notions of polyrhythm that haven't existed before the moment he rolled them off his sticks.
Walk into the Unitarian Meetinghouse in Amherst on a June evening in 1998 and you're entering a conversation between two musicians who know exactly what they're after—texture, counterpoint, the kind of interplay that feels both meticulously constructed and completely spontaneous. Sunny Murray is everywhere at once, his drumming fractured into multiple simultaneous narratives, each one demanding attention. Sabir Mateen's saxophone responds, queries, occasionally struggles to match Murray's pace, which is precisely the point. This isn't smooth bebop or the kind of free jazz that dissolves into abstraction. It's playful, rooted in warmth, built on the exchange between two improvisers who've earned the right to push each other.
Murray has been doing this for decades—pushing the boundaries of what drums can do rhythmically and texturally—and on this live recording he proves he hasn't lost anything. The polyrhythmic invention flows effortlessly, each stick strike landing where it needs to land, creating contrapuntal lines that feel composed even as they're being invented. Mateen holds his own when he can, and when he can't quite keep pace, that's interesting too. The struggle is part of the music, not a flaw in it.
If you know Murray's earlier recordings, this is where his ideas have crystallized—still experimental, still restless, but more confident about what he's after. If you're new to his work, this is a good place to start, an hour spent in a room with two musicians who still have something to say to each other.
