Sunny Murray (James Marcellus Arthur Murray, Idabel, Oklahoma, September 21, 1937 - December 8, 2017) was an American jazz drummer, one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming. Murray spent his youth in Philadelphia before moving to New York City where he began playing with Cecil Taylor: "We played for about a year, just practicing, studying - we went to workshops with Varèse, did a lot of creative things, just experimenting, without a job".