Murray, Albert L. 1916–

PERSONAL: Born June 12, 1916, in Nokomis, AL; son of John Lee and Sudie (Graham) Young; married Mozelle Menefee, May 31, 1941; children: Michele. Ethnicity: "Black." Education: Tuskegee Institute, B.S., 1939; New York University, M.A., 1948; postgraduate work at University of Michigan, 1940, Northwestern University, 1941, and University of Paris, 1950. Hobbies and other interests: Recordings, photography, cookbooks, and gourmet cooking.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—45 West 132nd St., New York, NY 10037.

CAREER: U.S. Air Force, 1943–62, retired as major. Instructor, Tuskegee Institute, 1940–43, 1946–51, director of College Little Theatre; lecturer, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University, 1968; Colgate University, O'Connor Professor of Literature, 1970, O'Connor Lecturer, 1973, professor of humanities, 1982; visiting professor of literature, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 1971; Paul Anthony Brick lecturer, University of Missouri, 1972; writer in residence, Emory University, 1978; adjunct associate professor of creative writing, Barnard College, 1981–83; Woodrow Wilson fellow, Drew University, 1983; lecturer and participant in symposia.

MEMBER: International PEN, Authors League of America, Authors Guild, Alpha Phi Alpha.

AWARDS, HONORS: Lillian Smith Award for fiction, 1974, for Train Whistle Guitar; Litt.D., Colgate University, 1975; Deems Taylor Award, ASCAP, for music criticism, 1976, for Stomping the Blues; Lincoln Center Directors Emeriti Award, 1991.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

The Omni-Americans: New Perspectives on Black Experience and American Culture (essays), Outerbridge & Dientsfrey, 1970, published as The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy, Vintage Book (St. Paul, MN), 1983.

South to a Very Old Place, McGraw (New York, NY), 1972.

The Hero and the Blues, University of Missouri Press (Columbia, MO), 1973.

Stomping the Blues, McGraw (New York, NY), 1976.

(With Count Basie) Good Morning Blues: The Autobiography of Count Basie, Random House (New York, NY), 1985.

The Blue Devils of Nada, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1996.

(Editor, with John F. Callahan) Trading Twelves: The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison and Albert Murray, Modern Library (New York, NY), 2000.

NOVELS

Train Whistle Guitar, McGraw (New York, NY), 1974.

The Spyglass Tree, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1991.

The Seven League Boots, Pantheon (New York, NY), 1996.

The Magic Keys, Pantheon (New York, NY), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS: Albert L. Murray's "mythic novels and fresh, discerning artistic and cultural criticism are sheer pleasure to read," states Booklist critic Donna Seaman, "but they provide more than a good time: they have helped define the essence of the African American aesthetic." Murray, a retired Air Force major, first gained recognition for his essay collection The Omni-Americans: New Perspectives on Black Experience and American Culture. In this book, he argues that black Americans have a distinctive identity of their own, developing a unique culture "which allows them to see themselves 'not as the substandard, abnormal non-white people of American social science surveys and the news media, but rather as if they were, so to speak, fundamental extensions of contemporary possibilities,'" says Dictionary of Literary Biography contributor Elizabeth Schultz. "Like jam session musicians and blues singers, they have learned the skills of improvisation, not only translating white models of excellence into their own terms, but also transforming degrading conditions into culture." Schultz declares that the "abiding concern of [Murray's] writing is the triumph of Afro-American people, who, despite and, indeed, in Murray's view, because of centuries of difficulties, created a courageous, complex, life-sustaining, and life-enhancing culture—apparent in their language, religion, sports, fashions, food, dance, and above all in their music."

Murray has infuriated some people with his unqualified rejection of black nationalism and his preference for terms such as "colored" and "Negro." The writer has repeatedly noted that his skin is brown, not black, and that he knows few people whose skin is truly "white" or "black." Focusing on skin tone only exacerbates prejudice because of it, he believes. In a Nation essay, Gene Seymour reports that The Omni-Americans "challenged readers to do the hard, honest, necessary work of accepting this complexity. In doing so, the book scolded and ridiculed an assortment of sociologist, ideologues and pundits of all political persuasions who let Marx or Freud frame their views of racial matters."

Murray expresses an interest in blues and jazz in other works, especially in The Hero and the Blues and Stomping the Blues, which is an attempt to redefine "the music and its connotations for American culture," according to Jason Berry of the Nation. S.M. Fry, writing in the Library Journal, points out that Murray "views the music not as a primitive musical expression of black suffering but as an antidote to the bad times." Murray, the reviewer says, also emphasizes the importance of the performance, "the performing style and the music itself over the lyrics and social or political connotations." These books have made Murray "one of the foremost literary interpreters of blues, jazz and improvisation," states Brent Staples in the New York Times Book Review.

Murray's trilogy of novels—Train Whistle Guitar, The Spyglass Tree, and The Seven League Boots—are autobiographical in tone. Like the author, their protagonist Scooter grows up in the deep South—fishing and hunting in the bayous, listening to spirituals and blues and folktales. Yet according to Richard M. Ready in South Atlantic Quarterly, Train Whistle Guitar is more than a coming-of-age tale; it also reveals the ideas behind Murray's nonfiction work, because it "works out through a series of improvisatory episodes Murray's commitment to the aesthetic, stylizing dimension of life as a key to the complicated business of making a life for oneself."

Reviewing The Spyglass Tree, Charles Monaghan asks in Washington Post Book World, "Is Albert Murray America's best black writer? There is certainly a case to be made for it, and his second novel, The Spyglass Tree only makes the case stronger." The book followed Scooter from his Alabama home town to college at an unnamed university obviously based on the Tuskegee Institute. Monaghan praises the "nitty-gritty of the book, the marvelous set pieces,… Murray's swooping, swerving prose" that add up to "amazing word music."

Murray provided more "invigorating interpretations of music, visual art, and literature dearest to his heart" in the essay collection The Blue Devils of Nada, Seaman writes in Booklist. A Publishers Weekly reviewer calls the contents a set of "elegantly learned essays" that illuminate the theme of "the effort of the engaged artist to document and give shape to the rootlessness and chaos underlying contemporary life in general…. Murray writes with passion for, and deep knowledge of, his blues masters."

Murray continued the story of Scooter with The Seven League Boots, in which his alter ego becomes a top jazz bassist. It is "Murray's most ambitious novel," in Seaman's opinion, that "affirms Scooter's status as a classical hero…. Scooter's story is infused with the elegant energy of jazz, the sonority of history, and the spirituality of art." Newsweek critic Malcolm Jones, Jr. calls The Seven League Boots "Murray's most singular achievement." Jones notes that Murray gives his protagonist "a splendid career, a movie-star girlfriend and success at every turn. Scooter's problem is that things come to him too easily. Being talented, Murray teaches us, isn't hard. The tough part is living up to what people expect of you and figuring out what to expect of yourself."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bruck, Peter, and Wolfgang Karrer, editors, The Afro-American Novel since 1960, B.R. Gruner Publishing (Amsterdam), 1982.

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 73, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1993.

Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 38: Afro-American Writers after 1955: Dramatists and Prose Writers, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1985.

PERIODICALS

American Heritage, September, 1996, p. 68.

American Poetry Review, July-August, 1978, pp. 42-45.

Atlantic Monthly, December, 1974, pp. 118, 120-123.

Black American Literature Forum, fall, 1991, pp. 449-523.

Booklist, February 15, 1996, p. 980; November 1, 1997, p. 448.

Bulletin of Research in the Humanities, summer, 1983, pp. 140-161.

Down Beat, October 20, 1977, pp. 51-52.

Entertainment Weekly, March 8, 1996, p. 60.

Library Journal, February 1, 1977.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, March 26, 1986.

Nation, January 15, 1977; pp. 55-57; March 25, 1996, p. 25.

Newsweek, March 23, 1970, p. 106; January 31, 1972; December 20, 1976; December 9, 1991, p. 71; February 5, 1996, p. 60.

New Yorker, October 17, 1970, pp. 185-186, 189; January 8, 1972; July 22, 1974; April 8, 1996, p. 70.

New York Review of Books, February 24, 1972; June 13, 1974, pp. 37-39; January 16, 1986.

New York Times, April 4, 1972; December 11, 1976; November 22, 1991, p. C29.

New York Times Book Review, May 3, 1970, pp. 6, 34; January 2, 1972; June 4, 1972; December 3, 1972; May 12, 1974, p. 7; December 1, 1974; December 26, 1976; December 26, 1982; February 2, 1986; March 10, 1996, p. 4.

Publishers Weekly, December 18, 1995, pp. 35, 39; February 26, 1996, p. 78.

Rolling Stone, January 13, 1977.

Saturday Review, January 22, 1972, p. 72; May 4, 1974, p. 51.

South Atlantic Quarterly, summer, 1986, pp. 270-282.

Time, January 10, 1972; March 10, 1986.

Times Literary Supplement, July 28, 1978; July 11, 1986.

Tribune Books (Chicago, IL), January 19, 1986.

Voice Literary Supplement, February, 1982.

Washington Post Book World, March 22, 1970; December 26, 1971, p. 11; December 8, 1974; January 8, 1986; November 3, 1991, pp. 7, 11.