David Murray Quartet - I Want To Talk About You (1986/2026)

Throughout this CD it seems as if tenor saxophonist David Murray and his rhythm section (pianist John Hicks, bassist Ray Drummond and drummer Ralph Peterson) are not communicating at all; at least their musical objectives differ greatly. While Murray uses a ballad ("Heart to Heart"), a mysterious mood piece ("Quad"), an R&B blues ("Red Car"), the title cut and the funky "Morning Song" as points of departure for his wild upper register flights, the backing trio plays all of the selections quite conventionally. The result is that David Murray often sounds very silly, as if he had decided to play whatever he wanted to no matter what the other musicians did, or was it the other way around? John Hicks consistently acts as if Murray were not even there and there is no reaction or feedback by the sidemen to the tenorman's explorations. © Scott Yanow