The Man

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Saturday, December 21, 2024

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Midway between Huckleberry Finn and Holden Caulfield, Danny Murrow confronts coming of age in the early days of the jazz era. From battered street-waif to celebrated guitar savant our hero endures and abides in “The Man,” newly released by Steve Gillette and Compass Rose Music.

Assisted by a miraculous aggregation of masterful musicians on some newly-roasted chestnuts and a handful of inspired originals, the CD draws from the realms of roots-jazz, folk, and blues; romance and boogie woogie in a time of prohibition.

Reviews are starting to come in words like, “Inspired!,” “Amazing!,” “Five out of Five Stars!” but enough of that, take a listen and see for yourself.

CD Now Available

Listen to the first 4 tracks by clicking on the track titles:

1. Conversion on 13th Avenue

In this first track we meet our hero, Danny Murrow and hear a little bit about his world. Danny is lucky to be adopted by a musical family . . .

2. St. Louis Blues – Jada

Danny comes out of his shell and discovers the guitar.

3. Cordovan Blues

The boys meet Samuel Clemens.

4. Johnny and Betty

Johnny falls in love.

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Barely able to stand, eye level with the keyboard, unsteadily clinging to the leg of our old upright piano, I imprinted on the rollicking, ground shaking rhythms of the venerable stride playing of my father,

In the Fall of 1939, Danny Murrow wrote a memoir of his time in the burgeoning world of jazz in the frantic twenties and trying thirties. Danny turned out to be a pretty good guitar player after all, starting from an awfully deep hole as a battered and abandoned street waif in New York in the eighteen eighties. Along the way, he got to know many of the luminaries of the time, had thrilling adventures, won the love of a wonderful woman and raised an exemplary child. . .

As a child I didn't have much of a chance to have a sense of who I was. I was, as they say, troubled. Who I am I owe largely to the woman who rescued me from the streets and volunteered to become the only mother I've ever known.

The man in the picture is my great-uncle, Danny Murrow. He and his brother, Johnny were pretty well known as musicians in the nineteen-twenties and thirties. Johnny played the piano and Danny played the guitar.

African music is poly- rhythmic and synco- pated. It avoids mono- tony by changing the accented beat from measure to measure.

Danny always said it was the music that really brought him into the world.

Most of the great re- cordings of the jazz era were made with equip- ment that would be considered by today's producers to be a cruel imposition.

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