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JJ 01/65: From Rah to Wow

Sixty years ago Steve Voce saw an audience of mainstream and modern enthusiasts at Club 43 in Manchester go beserk and refuse to let Mark Murphy finish at the end of the evening. First published in Jazz Journal January 1965

‘I guess the jazz things will he right for this audience.’ Mark Murphy was looking around the audience at Ernie Garside’s Club 43 while the Dankworth Quintet was playing. A fortnight later he came back and laid the jazz things on a packed and excited audience. Cracking hard into Straight No Chaser, Murphy put the audience immediately into the awed silence which was to persist throughout each number of his two-hour show. You could predict that I would be delighted by such a performance (it was my best night since hearing Roland Kirk for the first time in person) but I was very much heartened by the way in which an audience of mainstream and modern enthusiasts went beserk and refused to let him finish at the end of the evening. Garside, who was ecstatic about the full house, was quite light to give the one dissatisfied customer his money back (this chap obviously hadn’t realised that Alton Purnell wasn’t on till a week later). The man didn’t ask for his money back, but Garside insisted on the basis that on such a night no one had any right to be unhappy. (The only other sufferer was Roy Crimmins who was playing in the basement and managed to get upstairs for only three of Mark’s numbers).

Murphy’s idea of the jazz things baffles me a little, for I have seen what he calls his com­mercial night club act, which is total jazz – I have never heard him sing anything which couldn’t be described as a jazz performance

Brian Dee’s trio, with Freddie Logan and Jackie Dougan, made one realise why Murphy is so insistent on having the right backing. Using, as he does, a majority of numbers intended for big bands, the accompanying group has to provide a more complex than usual support, and this was particularly evident in numbers like I Remember Clifford and Whisper Not. Murphy’s idea of the jazz things baffles me a little, for I have seen what he calls his com­mercial night club act, which is total jazz – I have never heard him sing anything which couldn’t be described as a jazz performance. But this night had everything. Miles Davis’ All Blues, with its beautiful Oscar Brown lyrics, an incredible version of Bijou which had all the eccentric beauty of the Bill Harris-Herman original, and the two Benny Golson numbers mentioned above.

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Jon Hendricks has been responsible for most of the dexterous lyrics which Murphy employs, and these were all brilliantly written, with the ex­ception of I Remember Clifford, a lovely ar­rangement, spoiled by maudlin lyrics. If the other tracks on Murphy’s ‘That’s How I Feel About The Blues’ are as good as Silver’s Señor Blues was this night, then Philips should get it issued without delay.

Murphy’s type of singing may not be totally original, in that Mel Tormé has been doing it for years, but where Mark scores is in the depth of his feeling – technical fireworks never result in a falling off in this respect. This is an es­sentially exaggerated style – it has to be to capture so many different idioms, and yet the one constant factor at all times, in the middle of dexterity or humour, is the importance of feeling. He can be bucketing along through Doodlin’ or Milestones, or else improvising delicately on Body And Soul, but one never gets the feeling that he has picked a wrong number. I must admit to having doubts when Murphy announced Wee Baby Blues as his second number. I’ve always associated this one with Joe Turner, and the idea of Mark roughing it up like Big Joe didn’t seem to fit. However, it emerged as typical Murphy, less direct than Turner, but with typical improvisational flights and his usual instrumental sound.

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In listening to Murphy, one is constantly re­minded of Stan Getz – all the essential melody and technique are present, and one always has the feeling that, like Getz, the singer is, even when going like mad, still well within his limits. Such was the excitement generated by the sing­ing that one tended to take for granted the playing of the trio – I first wrote about it in one of the first of these columns, and still find it as fresh and as exhilarating as when Dee first opened in the Establishment Club.

The news that Ernie Garside is to book Mark again after Jimmy Witherspoon (they both pull in the same sized audiences) means that things are looking up. In the meanwhile it is to be hoped that Murphy’s success over here will pro­long his visit indefinitely. If you get the chance to hear him in person, don’t pass it up.

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