Z'EV & Sunny Murray R.I.P.

Another year, another passing of the old avant-guards. Two influential and vital artists who happened to be in the field of rhythms passed on within days of each other's departures.

First, Sunny Murray, who was one of the key percussionists, who revolutionised and liberated the sense of time and movement in jazz back in the 1960s and continued to exert an undeniable impact on jazz and many forms of modern music genres. In the company of illustrious giants like Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor, Murray's pulses were integral to the modern music.




Next, Z'EV, who had always been associated with the early Industrial music movement but he was more. A poet, a writer, a modern composer, field recordist and a polymath. When I first got hold of his seminal anthology, 

1968-1990: One Foot In The Grave,

 back in the early 2000s, I was deeply shocked and moved by his wealth of ideas and creativity exhibited in the plethora of projects he was in since the 1970s. By turns esoteric, expansive, spiky, inquisitive and sensitive, he continued this relentless creativity of his up to his last days.